L I B RARY
OF THE
UN IVERSITY
OF ILLINOIS
"R3GK.
cop. 2.
r
ILLINOIS HISTORY SURVEY
LIBRARY
The Ku Klux Klan
In American Politics
By ARNOLD S. RICE
INTRODUCTION BY HARRY GOLDEN
Public Affairs Press, Washington, D. C.
TO
ROSE AND DAVE,
JESSIE AND NAT
-AND, OF COURSE, TO MARCIA
Copyright, 1962, by Public Affairs Press
419 New Jersey Avenue, S. E., Washington 3, D.C.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 61-8449
Ste3 >.
INTRODUCTION
There is something quite frightening about this book. It is not
so much that Dr. Rice recounts some of the brutalities and excesses
of the Ku Klux Klan or even that he measures the intelligence of
those who led the cross-burners as wanting; indeed, those of us
who lived through the "kleagling" of the 1920's remember that the
Klansmen, while not men, weren't boys either. What is frightening
is the amount of practical action the successors to the Klan have
learned from it. They have learned not only from the Klan's mistakes
but from the Klan's successes.
Fortunately, neither the John Birch Society nor the White Citizens
Councils nor the revivified Klan nor the McCarthyites have learned
well enough to grasp ultimate power. All of them, however, have
learned enough so that they are more than an annoyance to the
democratic process.
Just how successful was the Klan? It never played a crucial role
in a national election. The presence of Klansmen on the floor of a
national political convention often succeeded in watering down the
anti-Klan plank but national candidates, if they chose, could casti-
gate the Klan at will. In the presidential campaign of 1928 between
Alfred E. Smith and Herbert Hoover, the Klan helped bring the
virulency of anti-Catholicism to a fever point, but that virulency
was always there and it was not strictly that virulency which lost
Al Smith the White House. True, Klan propaganda may have
helped Smith lose the electoral votes of five traditionally Democratic
Southern states but Republicans and prosperity really dealt him
the loss. If Daniel Boone had been running on the Democratic
ticket in 1928 he would have been swamped, too.
Nor was the Klan ever notably successful in state politics. Their
politicking rarely won consistent effects and often resulted in abject
failure: vide Dr. Rice's summary of the election of "Ma" Ferguson
in Texas in the mid 1920's. The Klan dissipated, says Dr. Rice.
There were too many politicians among them and of those politicians
too many were simply stupid. But where the Klan was successful
was in local politics. In many Southern States, in Indiana, Ohio,
and New Jersey, at the precinct level the Klan was not only a
potent political force, it was the electorate. Whole police departments
were composed of Klansmen and the municipal committees were
Hi
V
iv INTRODUCTION
composed of Klansmen and the mayor and the dog catcher, if not
Klansmen too, were dependent upon Klansmen's favor.
The Klan was most successful when it espoused Americanism
rather than specific candidates at the state and national level. The
John Birch Society which inundates its secret cells with a continuous
flow of reading material learned this from the Klan; and the White
Citizens Councils, whom Hodding Carter calls the "uptown Klan",
imitate the Klan when they solicit doctors and other professional men
before starting their larger recruiting drive for members.
Why then do they never succeed to ultimate power?
They fail really because they themselves become a national issue
before they can create a national issue to their liking. The Klansmen
loved tar and feathering, floggings, kidnappings and night riding
expeditions. Thus, they made violence a national issue. The White
Citizens Councils did not move to disperse the mobs which con-
gregated around the public schools when the lone Negro child walked
into it and they too made mob action not only a national but an
international issue. Because they are a secret society the John
Birch Society has made the mistake no public society would ever
have committed: Robert Welch, their leader, called Dwight D.
Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles Communists (to my mind Mr.
Welch is a lot like the old-fashioned hoopskirt in that he covers
everything but touches nothing). And the late Senator Joe McCarthy
became a national issue because he was a Republican in a Republican
Administration and while I am aware that the decency and honesty
of the politicians received the bravos for discrediting him, I believe
the instinct for self-preservation, which runs high in all politicians,
should get some share of this glory, too.
Dr. Rice, whose book is economical yet inclusive, offers up several
reasons why men did don silly robes and masks and burn crosses
on the hillside. They are all cogent and I do not wish to anticipate
his way of telling his story, but, in conclusion, I would like to touch
on one reason he does not mention.
America was the first moral idea among nations and being an
American is a heady moral experience. It is so heady an experience
that literally it drives some people insane. The experience is too
much for them and they don foolish costumes and invent an equally
foolish nomenclature and yet, possibly because their wellsprings
are American, they manage for a short while, to terrorize the rest
of us. We had best understand them.
Habby Golden
Charlotte, North Carolina
PREFACE
The Ku Klux Klan of the twentieth century has been a many-sided
organization. Comprising its creed have been a half dozen or so
tenets. To carry out its program based upon these articles of faith,
the secret order has used a variety of political methods. Unfortunately,
the Klan has left the scantiest amount of documentary evidence con-
cerning its activities. For this reason no work on the Klan — 'in-
cluding this one — can pretend to be truly comprehensive.
Contrary to general belief, Klanism has been nationwide. In practi-
cally every state of the union there have existed local chapters. In-
deed, on the Pacific coast and in the Middle West in the 1920's
the secret order achieved tremendous power and success. Nevertheless,
it is a matter of historical record that the Klan has been predominantly
a southern phenomenon. The brain of the Klan, the heart of the Klan
are stamped "Dixie." Therefore, this work necessarily lays stress on
Klanism in the South.
As used herein the term "the South" refers to thirteen states — the
eleven states that comprised the Confederacy plus two of the border
slave states which held for the Union during the Civil War, Maryland
and Kentucky. While the other border slave states of 1861-1865, Dela-
ware and Missouri, and the post-bellum state Oklahoma are sometimes
considered with West Virginia to be a part of the twentieth century
South, Klan influence in those states has not been strong enough to
warrant detailed treatment.
The period from 1915 to the present is covered herein. Both cere-
monially and legally, 1915 marks the beginning of the secret order pat-
terned after the Ku Klux Klan of Reconstruction days. In a sense
1960. is of terminal significance since a Catholic was chosen President of
the United States despite all the efforts of the Klan to prevent his
election.
The progress of the author's research was greatly hampered by the
Klan's secrecy. Moreover, because the organization has been discredit-
ed, former Klansmen have been unwilling to discuss with outsiders
their recollections of the inner workings of the order. In addition,
the personal papers of ex-Klansmen relating to their activities in the
vi PREFACE
fraternity have either been destroyed or kept hidden. Thus writing
this book has been far from easy.
Happily, many individuals have given me generous assistance —
journalists and historians, librarians who made every effort to satisfy
my requests for source materials, fellow teachers who read individual
chapters and commented thereon, relatives and friends who gave me
lodging while I was away from home doing research. But there
are two people to whom I owe especial thanks for the completion of
this book. One is Dr. Chase C. Mooney, Associate Professor of
History at Indiana University. A critic extraordinary, he always
counselled, never prescribed. The other is Marcia Griff Rice, my
wife. As research assistant, grammarian, and literary stylist, she con-
tributed vastly more than a husband had the right to expect.
Arnold S. Rice
Colonia, New Jersey
CONTENTS
i
Historical Background 1
II
Expansion in the 1920's 13
V
The Klan Enters the Political Arena 30
IV
Local Chapter Antics 38
v
Statewide Activities 58
VI
Debut in National Politics 74
VII
War Against Al Smith 85
VIII
Disrepute and Decline 92
IX
A Splintered Body 108
References 130
Index 140
Chapter I
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
On Thanksgiving night, 1915, sixteen men motored from Atlanta,
Georgia, to nearby Stone Mountain, a six hundred and fifty foot dome-
shaped rising of solid gray granite. Stumbling in the dark on the
steep, smooth stone trail, the men worked their way slowly to the
broad top of the mountain. There, braving the "surging blasts of
wild wintry mountain winds and ... a temperature far below freez-
ing," 1 they quickly and quietly carried out their appointed tasks. Soon
the small group found itself gathered under a burning wooden cross
and before a hastily constructed rock altar upon which lay an American
flag, an opened Bible, an unsheathed sword, and a canteen of water. A
sacred oath of allegiance was taken to the Invisible Empire, Knights
of the Ku Klux Klan.
William Joseph Simmons of Atlanta was the leader that night. A
month before, on October 16, 1915, after hearing him outline his plans
for a fraternity patterned after the Ku Klux Klan of Reconstruction
days, thirty-four Georgians had put their signatures to an application
to the authorities of their state for a charter. On December 4, 1915,
a week after that night on top of Stone Mountain, the charter was
granted. Professedly an eleemosynary organization, it was formally
defined as a "patriotic, secret, social, benevolent order under the name
and style of 'Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.' " On July 1, 1916, on peti-
tion of Simmons and eleven others, the order was duly incorporated
by the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia.
What of Simmons' past? Rather little of his life before 1915 is
definitely known. He was born, it appears, in 1880, on a farm near
Harpersville, Alabama, where he spent his childhood. After serving
in the Spanish- American War as a private in an Alabama regiment,
he became a circuit rider of the Methodist Episcopal Church. After
a decade or so of ministerial work, he turned to selling, drifting from
one job to another. 2 In or about 1912 he accepted a post as instructor
in Southern history at Lanier University in Atlanta.
An important aspect of Simmons' career throughout his early adult
years was his not too successful recruiting or "boosting" for various
2 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
fraternal orders. Fraternalism was something quite dear to him.
With a measure of pride, he once declared:
"I am a member of a number of fraternal orders — the Masons,
Royal Arch Masons, the Great Order of Knight Templars, and . . .
[other] affiliations that I have gone into, about twelve or fifteen in
number, in my lifetime. ... In fact, I have been a fraternalist ever
since I was in the academy school way back yonder and I believe in
fraternal orders and fraternal relationships among men, in a fraternity of
nations, so that all people might know something of the great doctrine
of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." 8
What of Simmons' personal characteristics? Tall and lanky, he was
auburn-haired, smooth-shaven, clear-eyed behind the pince-nez per-
ched upon a prominent nose, thin-lipped, and deep-voiced. Possessed of
a spellbinding rhetoric, he talked like the old-time revivalist preacher
he resembled. His pleasures, however, were anything but clerical —
horse races, boxing matches, "social" drinking.
"Colonel" Simmons — he gloried in this title 4 — was a person of deep
emotions., Whenever he read or heard tales of the Ku Klux Klan
he seems to have been in a true state of pleasure. "From a child in
dresses," he once related, "I can remember how old Aunt Viney, my
black mammy, used to pacify us children late in the evening by telling
us about the Kuklux." With wide eyes and open mouth he listened
to others (among whom was his father, a bona fide member of the
first Klan) tell stories about the Reconstruction organization. Late
one night, in his twentieth year, while he was perusing a newly found
book about the Klan, a vision suddenly appeared to him: "On horse-
back in their white robes they [the Klansmen of old] rode across the
wall in front of me, and as the picture faded out I got down on my
knees and swore that I would found a fraternal organization which
would be a memorial to the Ku Klux Klan." For fifteen years Simmons
never forgot his great vow. On Thanksgiving night, 1915, on top of
Stone Mountain the moment arrived. He could then well say: "...
the Invisible Empire was called from its slumber of half a century to
take up a new task."
Although "Colonel" Simmons' Klan was to be a memorial to the
original organization, it came to possess a wider program than its
precursor. To the Reconstruction order's anti-Negroism, the twen-
tieth century Klan soon added anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and
anti-foreign-bornism. But if the new Klan was more than the old
in program, it copied its forerunner in structure. The revived Invisible
Empire, coextensive with the United States, was divided into eight
■>
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 3
"Domains," each comprised of anywhere from a single thickly popu-
lated state (such as the "Domain of the East" which contained only
New York ) to a half dozen or so sparsely populated neighboring states
(such as the "Domain of the Mississippi Valley" which included seven
states). Each one of the forty-eight states, known as a "Realm," was
further broken down into "Provinces," most of which held a score or
so of counties. Within each Province lay the smallest units in the
Invisible Empire, the individual "Klans" or local chapters. 5
The Invisible Empire was under the rule of the "Imperial Wizard,"
the Domain under the command of the "Grand Goblin," the Realm
under the jurisdiction of the "Grand Dragon," the Province under the
control of the "Great Titan," and the local Klan under the leadership
of the "Exalted Cyclops."
"Colonel" Simmons was the first Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux
Klan. As such, his edicts were to be respected throughout each and
every division of the Invisible Empire. He had the sole power of
appointment to, and removal from, his cabinet of twelve Imperial of-
ficers, who were known collectively as the "Genii." No charter could
be granted to a local Klan without his consent, and any charter could
be revoked upon his request. Moreover, he was the sole formulator
of all ritual and the sole arbiter of all dogma of the Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan. Coadjutor to the Imperial Wizard was the "Emperor."
His job was largely one of expediting all transactions coming from the
"Imperial Aulic," or sanctum, of the Imperial Wizard. The office of
Emperor was set up in 1922 to satisfy the "Colonel's" desire for an
administrative, assistant.
The Imperial legislature of the Ku Klux Klan was called the "Klonvo-
kation." Meeting biennially or at the request of the Imperial Wizard,
this body was composed of the Imperial Wizard, the Emperor, the
Genii, and the presiding officer of each subdivision of the Invisible
Empire. Advising the Imperial Wizard and the Klonvokation was
the "Kloncilium." Assembling annually or during an emergency in
a special session called by the Imperial Wizard, the Kloncilium con-
sisted of the Genii and any other Klansmen asked to serve. Primarily
a judicial body, the Kloncilium could also act legislatively whenever
the Klonvokation was not in session.
Because the constitution of the Klan provided no clear definition
of the particular duties and prerogatives of the three organs of the
Imperial division — the Imperial Wizard and his Genii, the Klonvoka-
tion, and the Kloncilium — confusion and conflict existed during the
reign of Imperial Wizard Simmons. As the reign of Simmons' sue-
4 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
cessor wore on, both the Klonvokation and Kloncilium became merely
the extended arm of the Imperial Wizard.
With each Domain doing little besides existing on paper, and with
its Grand Goblin being little more than a sinecurist, the first important
subdivision below the Imperial sphere was the Realm with its Grand
Dragon. Each Grand Dragon was the Imperial Wizard's personal rep-
resentative in the Realm, appointed by him and removed at his will.
Assisting each Grand Dragon in carrying out unhesitatingly the com-
mands of the Imperial Wizard was a council of nine, known collec-
tively as the "Hydras."
One of the Grand Dragon's powers was to subdivide his Realm
into Provinces and to appoint, without confirmation from his superiors,
a Great Titan to each. Attached to the presiding officer of each
Province was a group of seven advisors, the "Furies." Set up for
recruitment purposes, the Province was permitted to exist long after
it had fulfilled its original function. Occupying the layer it did in the
strata of authority within the Invisible Empire, the vestigial Province
prevented direct contact between the Realm officers and the local
Klans, a situation quite detrimental to the efficient execution of Im-
perial decrees in the farthest reaches of the Invisible Empire.
Members of the local Klan, with the consent of both the Great Titan
and the Grand Dragon of the Province and the Realm directly con-
cerned, elected their own officers. They were, in addition to the
Exalted Cyclops, eleven "Terrors," the "Klaliff" (Vice-President),
the "Klokard" (Lecturer), the "Kludd" (Chaplain), the "Kligrapp"
(Secretary), the "Klabee" (Treasurer), the "Kladd" (Conductor of
members into the meeting), the "Klarogo" (Inner Guard of the meet-
ing), the "Klexter" (Outer Guard of the meeting), and the three
"Klokann" (a Board of Investigators, Auditors, and Advisors, each
member of which bore the title "Klokan").
The meeting place of a local Klan was called the "Klavern." Any
room could serve as such if it were properly decked out with an altar
upon which lay an American flag (to show the patriotism of those
present), a Bible open at Romans XII (as a guide to the Christian life),
an unsheathed sword ( representing the determination to overcome the
obstacles to Christian living), and a container of water (the contents
of which were sprinkled upon initiates to rid them of "alien" defile-
ment), and if it were illuminated by a "fiery cross" (best known symbol
of the organization, made usually of wood and electric light bulbs,
which was said to have been inspired by the burning crosses that
rallied the Scottish clans). The Klan was required to hold a meeting,
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 5
called a "Klonldave," at least once a month, with six "Knights" ( mem-
bers of the order) constituting a quorum. Each meeting was con-
ducted according to the order set forth in the "Kloran," the official
manual on Klonldave procedure. To outsiders the rubric of the Klon-
ldave would certainly have appeared tiresomely long; the opening
ceremony, for example, filled eight closely printed pages of the Kloran,
while the closing ceremony filled five. 9
Four years before that Thanksgiving night on top of Stone Mountain,
"Colonel" Simmons, confined to his bed following an automobile ac-
cident, had ample time to ruminate about other aspects of his dream
organization besides its native-born, white, Protestant philosophy and
subdivisional structure. Indeed, while he lay bedridden for three
months he was able to work out most of the details for the costume
consisting of the peaked hood and robe, the various emblems and
tokens, 7 the placing of the letters "Kl" in front of every title, the ritual
of the local Klan meeting, and the motto, "Non Silba Sed Anthar." 8
For the first few years after receiving its charter, the Klan had an
uneventful, if not precarious, existence. Dogged by a lack of financial
backing and only half-hearted co-operation from his fellow Knights,
Imperial Wizard Simmons carried on almost single-handed. It was
he who did the recruiting, saw to the advertising, arranged for the
production of regalia, and drafted the constitution. 9 Of those early
years of adversity, the "Colonel" was wont to reminisce aloud — and
none too modestly — of his perseverance:
". . . the work was a tremendous struggle, made more arduous by a
traitor in our ranks who held under me a position of trust, who em-
bezzled all of our accumulated funds in the summer of 1916 . . . The
treacherous conduct of this man left me penniless, with a large ac-
cumulation of debts against the order. I was advised to give it up
by many, but I felt and knew that my honor was at stake. ... I was
forced to mortgage my home in order to get money with which to carry
on . . . the work we had to do.
"During all this time of dread and darkness, I virtually stood alone,
but remaining true to the dictates of unsullied honor, I steered the
infant organization through dangerous channels and finally succeeded
in making good. . . . ,no
At the beginning of 1920 there were but a few chapters scattered
throughout the South, most of them in Alabama and Georgia, with a
probable total membership well under 2,000. The organized activity
of these local Klans up to this time had been quite sporadic. In Mobile,
in the summer of 1918, for example, Klansmen as a body spoke out
6 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
against a shipyard strike and hunted out draft dodgers; in Birmingham,
in 1919, they demanded greater police action against the criminal
elements of the city; in Atlanta, in 1919, they marched in the parade at
the reunion of Confederate Veterans, and at the beginning of the
following year met to celebrate the adoption of the Eighteenth
(Prohibition) Amendment to the Constitution.
Such slow growth was due in large part to the lack of the right kind
of leadership in the highest echelon of authority. Simmons did have
faith — he "actually went hungry in order that the bills of the Klan
might be met"; he simply did not have a head for business enterprise.
The Imperial Wizard was, in other words, little more than a dreamer.
One who studies the early history of the Klan finds himself readily
assenting to the point of view of a well-known contemporary reporter
of the order that "had the propagation of the Klan remained in Colonel
Simmons' hands, it is fairly certain that the organization would never
have attained large dimensions or become a national problem."
The expansion of the Klan began in 1920, the year of its reorgani-
zation. On June 7 of that year Simmons, after finally recognizing
his limitations, signed a contract with a thoroughly experienced pro-
moter of money drives and a master of publicity, Edward Young
Clarke of Atlanta. Before Clarke jonied forces with the "Colonel,"
he had been at various times a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution, a
solicitor for the Woodmen of the World ( although Simmons had been
similarly engaged, the two did not meet until the beginning of 1920),
and a worker for the war-fund campaigns of World War I. According
to the contract, Simmons was to retain his autocratic control of the
Klan but Clarke, as "Imperial Kleagle," was to have a free hand in
building up the membership by his own devices. 11 In his role as head
of the Propagation Department of the Klan, Clarke found himself rely-
ing more and more upon the assistance of his business associate, a
plump, fair-haired widow named Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler. It is interest-
ing to note that the latter was not even mentioned in the contract and
never held an official post in the Invisible Empire. Let Mrs. Tyler
relate how this important, albeit short-lived, triumvirate came to be:
"He [Clarke] was in charge of a great Harvest Festival in Atlanta
that brought more people to Atlanta than had ever been there before.
I was interested in hygiene work for babies ... in the Harvest Festi-
val we had a "Better Babies" Parade, of which I had charge. It was
through this that I met Mr. Clarke. After we had talked over many
business enterprises we formed the Southern Publicity Association
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 7
... I financed the Southern Publicity Association and stayed in the
office, and Mr. Clarke was field representative.
"We came in contact with Col. Simmons and the Ku Klux Klan
through the fact that my son-in-law joined it. We found Col. Sim-
mons was having a hard time to get along . . . and he was heart and
soul for the success of his Ku Klux Klan. After we had investigated it
from every angle, we decided to go into it with Col. Simmons and give
it the impetus that it could get best from publicity." u
Clarke and Tyler associated themselves with the Klan to make money.
In their desire to "sell" the organization, they found it most effective
to appeal to the racial, religious, and nationalistic feelings of prospec-
tive joiners. Their publicity releases strove to show how the Klan
was the country's only bulwark against the evil forces of the Negro,
Catholic, Jew, and immigrant. I As a direct result of the Clarke-Tyler
program the Klan found itself being quickly transformed from a some-
what easy-going southern fraternity of patriotic whites into a violently
aggressive national organization of chauvinistic native-born, white
Protestants! 1
In addition to directing publicity with Mrs. Tyler, Clarke, as Im-
perial Kleagle, attended to the more difficult task of actual recruiting.
Under him there was for each Realm of the Invisible Empire a "King
Kleagle," to whom in turn there were attached as many "Kleagles"
as necessary to do the field work within the Realm. By the middle of
1921 there were over 200 Kleagles active throughout the United States. 13
The "Klectoken," or $10 fee, collected from each new member was
disposed of as follows : the Kleagle kept for himself $4 and remitted $6
to the King Kleagle; the latter retained $1 and sent $5 to the Grand
Goblin of the Domain to which he was attached; the Grand Goblin
took $.50 and sent $4.50 to the Imperial Kleagle, who in turn kept $2.50
and paid the rest into the coffers of the Imperial Wizard. The entire
system was meticulously conducted, with each official required to file
his weekly returns.
Clarke and Tyler duly carried out their end of the bargain; within
a year and a half after the Southern Publicity Association linked it-
self with the Klan, the latter grew from a few thousand members to
about 100,000.
However, the Imperial Wizard would have one believe that "it
wasn't until newspapers began to attack the Klan that it really grew."
On September 6, 1921, the New York World began a three-week series
of bitterly hostile articles on the objectives, methods, and leaders of the
Klan. According to this newspaper, the order was merely a group
8 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
of avaricious peddlers of bigotry. Eighteen leading newspapers, in-
cluding such southern journals as the New Orleans Times-Picayune,
the Dallas Morning News, and the Columbus, Georgia Enquirer-Sun,
published the New York World's exposure.
The anti-Klan press ultimately had a hand in inducing Congress it-
self to investigate the order. The House of Representatives Committee
on Rules conducted hearings from October 11 to 17, 1921. Simmons,
on the stand for several days, was ever mindful of the fact that a
defense of the Klan in his own words was being sent by reporters
all over the country. He even sought to "cash in" on this by asserting
that the interest of the House of Representatives Committee on Rules
reflected approval of the Klan.
However unwittingly, the Congressional investigation did give the
secret fraternity a considerable amount of free and valuable advertising.
Upon his return from Washington to national headquarters in Atlanta,"
the "Colonel" found himself "literally swamped" with letters from all
parts of the country requesting permission to organize local Klans.
Simmons, Clarke, Tyler, and their respective underlings worked long
hours every day trying to meet the clamorous demand for admittance
into the Invisible Empire — a demand that was to result within the next
year in over 1,100,000 new members. Simmons' observation of all this
was gleeful and succinct: "Congress made us."
The Imperial Wizard soon felt that he needed an energetic, dedicated
man as a personal assistant. After weeks of searching, Clarke finally
found him one — Hiram Wesley Evans. Born in Ashland, Alabama, in
1881, Evans received his formal education at Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, Tennessee, and eventually settled in Dallas, Texas, where
he practiced dentistry. Before he was brought to Atlanta, where
"Colonel" Simmons promptly presented him with the official post of
Kligrapp in his cabinet, Dr. Evans had been the Exalted Cyclops of the
local Klan in Dallas. In his early forties, blue-eyed, round-faced,
pudgy, and genial, Dr. Evans liked to think of himself as "the most
average man in America." But he was no average man; he had within
him both the deep faith of Simmons and the vast practicality of
Clarke.
In March, 1922, upon the insistence of his wife, who feared that he
was on the verge of a nervous collapse, Simmons took a six months'
leave of absence from his Klan duties, during which time Clarke
served as Imperial Wizard ad interim. Upon returning, restored neither
in strength nor spirit, yet shuddering at the thought of relinquishing
the great office he held, the "Colonel" evolved a plan whereby he
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 9
could have his cake and eat it too. He decided to summon a Klonvoka-
tion so that it could, during the course of its business, re-elect him as
Imperial Wizard and provide him with a coadjutor who could relieve
him of the many and varied petty details of planning and implementing
policy. He suggested that this new administrative assistant be called
"Emperor."
The Klonvokation was called for November 27, 1922, in Atlanta.
At about four o'clock that morning Simmons was roused from his sleep
by two agitated Klansmen: David Curtis Stephenson and Fred L.
Savage. The former was a coal dealer from Indianapolis who as Grand
Dragon of the Realm of Indiana had acquired both immense wealth
and great power in the politics of his state. The latter was an ex-
New York City pier detective who as "Imperial Night Hawk" in Sim-
mons' cabinet was the head of the Klan secret service with a force of
fifty or so special agents.
As "Colonel" Simmons later told it, the following conversation took
place:
"Mr. Savage became grave and very pointedly said, 'Don't you
permit your name to come before the Klonvokation for nomination as
Imperial Wizard . . . We have the information that if your name is men-
tioned on the floor of the Klonvokation, there are men there who are
going to get up and attack your character ... I have got men placed
and have given orders to shoot and shoot to kill any . . . man that
attacks the character of Colonel Simmons. Consequently, a rough
house is going to be provoked and the Klonvokation will be destroyed.
Now in order to preserve the harmony and the peace and the wonder-
ful carrying on of the Klonvokation as we have it, let us beat those birds
and you give them a message in which you refuse to allow your
name to come before them to succeed yourself.
"After a few minutes' pause they . . . asked me if I wouldn't name
as my choice Hiram Wesley Evans, in order to meet the situation. I
told them . . . that there was nothing on the board against Hiram
Wesley Evans and that he might fit in an emergency as he had know-
ledge of the workings of the office, has been there a year with it.
"They said, 'Then you name Dr. Evans as your successor?' I said,
'Under the circumstances and facts of this little conference here, I
am agreeable to him.' " 16
The Klonvokation elected Dr. Evans as Imperial Wizard and in-
stalled "Colonel" Simmons as Emperor, after redrafting the constitution
to provide for the new office.
Then Simmons learned that the early morning visit from the Grand
/
70 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Dragon of the Realm of Indiana and the Imperial Night Hawk was
but an integral part of a coup d'etat engineered by these two men with
the assistance of H. C. McCall, a former constable of Houston and a
leader of the Klan there, and James A. Comer, Grand Dragon of the
Realm of Arkansas. Simmons found out that many hours before
Stephenson and Savage awakened him that morning they had sent
a handful of henchmen to the hotel rooms of the various influential
members of the Klonvokation to convince them that the Imperial
Wizardship should go to Evans.
It should be noted that after the Klonvokation Evans asserted that
he had no knowledge of the intrigue in which "the boys" had engaged
in his behalf, that his elevation to the highest office in the Klan
had been a complete and total surprise. Simmons was never able to
believe this.
Concomitant with the election of Evans to the Imperial Wizardship
was the disruption of the triumvirate of Simmons, Clarke, and Tyler.
At the beginning of 1923 Mrs. Tyler married an affluent Atlanta movie
theater proprietor and so left active Klan work to take up once more the
chores of a household. The following year she died. Just as soon
as Evans found it propitious, he cancelled Clarke's contract as organi-
zer. On March 5, 1923, an announcement came from the Imperial Aulic
that Clarke had been removed "for the good of the order" and would
no longer receive "one cent of revenue from the Klan." By the late
spring of 1923 Evans had accomplished the transfer of all the significant
duties of the Emperorship to the Imperial Wizardship; "Colonel" Sim-
mons, by now a semi-invalid, was stripped of even those last remaining
bits of power that he had enjoyed after the coup d'etat. On May 1-2,
1923, at a special meeting of the Kloncilium, the Ku Klux Klan bought
from Simmons various copyrights to the organization, in return for
which it agreed to pay him $1,000 a month for the rest of his life. The
following September Simmons resigned from the Klan and relinquished
all legal interests in the order for a flat sum of $146,500. The "Colonel"
remained for many years in Atlanta, where he made several attempts
to organize orders similar to the Klan. He finally gave up in despair,
and left for Luverne, Alabama, where he ended his days in quiet
retirement. In 1945 he died.
While Evans was the undisputed ruler of the Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan he made certain changes which he looked upon as reforms.
First, each functionary was given a moderate salary instead of receiv-
ing, as heretofore, large sums out of receipts from initiation fees and
the sale of regalia. 16 Second, any Klansman of questionable morals was
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 11
expelled from the organization, and the private life of the applicant for
membership was now quite closely scrutinized. Third, any act of
terrorism engaged in by Klansmen was vigorously denounced; in
order to curtail lawless activities of members hiding behind Klan
regalia, the wearing of the hood and robe was forbidden except
at formal ceremonies. 17 Fourth, from a "band of twentieth century
knights, without fear and without reproach," the order was molded into
a powerful force in the local, state, and national politics of America.
Evans' "reform" policy could not eradicate the widespread antipathy
toward the Klan which had been incurred during the heyday of the
Simmons-Clarke-Tyler regime. The public still remained incensed at
the accumulation of riches by the former hierarchy of the secret
fraternity. 18 As Imperial Wizard, Simmons had enjoyed a salary of
$1,000 a month and unlimited personal and official expense accounts.
Among the many gifts from his followers there had been a $33,000
home in Atlanta known as "Klankrest," two high-priced automobiles,
and an appropriation of $25,000 as compensation for those early years
of unremunerative service to the Invisible Empire. 18 From just after
the Congressional investigation of the Klan in October, 1921, until his
expulsion from the order in March, 1923, Clarke, as Imperial Kleagle,
had received as much as $40,000 a month. Stephenson had owned a
lavishly furnished mansion in a suburb of Indianapolis, a costly yacht
en Lake Michigan, a private railroad car, and a gilded airplane
(complete with personal pilot). All in all, this Grand Dragon of the
Realm of Indiana had amassed from his office a fortune of $3,000,000.
America was still disgusted by the scandalous private lives of former ^
high-ranking Klansmen. As years had passed, Simmons had become
a near-drunkard. 20 It is not unlikely that the "Colonel's" inveter- .
ate drinking was a factor in the nervous illness he had suffered just
before losing the Imperial Wizardship. In October, 1919, in Atlanta,
Clarke and Mrs. Tyler had been arrested together and fined for dis-
orderly conduct; that is, for having been intoxicated and not fully
clad. The arrest had taken place on information given by Clarke's
wife, who had a fortnight previously sued for divorce on the ground
of desertion. In September, 1923, Clarke had been placed under bond
for carrying whiskey in his traveling bag. In November, 1924, the
U. S. federal court at Houston had found Clarke guilty and fined
him $5,000 for having violated the White Slave Act in February, 1921. n
Every time Stephenson had given a party — and he had been famous
for them — he had loaded his mansion with wine and women to insure
hours of fun for the many guests. Stephenson himself had liked the
12 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
ladies. One to whom he had given much attention (years after desert-
ing first one, then another, wife) was an employee of the Indiana
Department of Public Welfare, Miss Madge Oberholtzer. In March,
1925, after having had sadistic sexual relations forced upon her by
Stephenson, Miss Oberholtzer had written an anguished note and
swallowed a fatal dose of poison. After a trial that had attracted wide-
spread attention, Stephenson had been found guilty of murder and
sentenced to life imprisonment. 22
The nation could not forget the past activities of the Klansmen who
had looked upon their organization as a nationwide vigilance com-
mittee. These self-appointed protectors of a community's morals and
peace had taken such measures against wrongdoers (either real or
imagined ) as ostracism, boycotting, the sending of threatening letters
and even "night-riding," the culmination of which was tar and feather-
ing, whipping, branding, or emasculation. As a matter of fact Evans'
effort to discourage the maltreating of erring citizens by Klansmen
was less than successful.
If the first three of Evans' "reforms" did not assuage the nation's
wrath toward the Klan, the fourth served only to augment that wrath.
The public became chafed at a fraternal organization which more
and more demanded the right and oftener and oftener was able to
"express itself" in the political field.
This "reform" policy of Evans' could never have eradicated the wide-
spread antipathy toward the Klan because the order remained, in
essence, what it had long been — a champion of native-born, white
Protestantism. As such, the secret fraternity under Evans — as under
Simmons, Clarke, and Tyler — automatically made enemies of large
numbers of Americans — anyone who happened to be foreign-born,
Negro, Catholic, Jewish, or opposed to bigotry and chauvinism. 28
As the third decade of the twentieth century approached a close,
the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was no longer able to maintain its
membership. In 1924, there had been more than 4,000,000 members.
By 1926 the membership had shrunk to fewer than 1,500,000. By
1928 it had shriveled to about. 200,000. In 1928, however, the Klan
spirit, if not the Klan organized political potency of former years, was
a factor in cracking the "Solid South," when the Democratic party's
candidate for the presidency was a Catholic, Alfred E. Smith. Then,
what was left of the Invisible Empire collapsed. By 1930 its member-
ship had withered away to scarcely 50,000. And with the depression
of this new decade, the secret order was all but forgotten. 24
Chapter II
EXPANSION 9N THE 1920'S
It is a serious mistake to think that the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920's
was a powerful force only in the Deep South. To be sure, the order
was founded in Georgia, and then spread rather quickly to the neigh-
boring states of Alabama and Florida. However, the Klan reached its
first peak of success, after the Congressional investigation in October,
1921, in the vast area to the west of the lower Mississippi River, in Texas,
Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Then the organization took firm root on
the Pacific coast, first in California and later in Oregon. And by 1924
the fraternity reached extraordinary success in the Middle West
generally and fantastic success in the states of Indiana and Ohio partic-
ularly. 1
One of the most astute of the many contemporary students of the
Klan, Stanley Frost, calculated that the order at its height of activity
had about 4,000,000 members distributed as follows: Indiana, 500,000;
Ohio, 450,000; Texas, 415,000; California, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon
200,000 each; Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New
Jersey, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia, between 50,000 and
200,000 each.
One might wonder at the large number of Klansmen in states
having so few Negroes, Catholics, Jews, or foreign-born — states lacking,
therefore, in all those things against which the Klan railed and upon
which it thrived. The secret is that in the 1920's the bulk of the
people in the states of the western reaches of the lower Mississippi
Valley, the Pacific coast, and the Middle West were the descendants —
both physical and spiritual — of that old American stock from which the
anti-Catholic and nativistic movements of the preceding century drew
their chief support.
The Klan was in the main a village and small town phenomenon.
Neither the city, as a potpourri of many racial, religious, and ethnic
groups, nor the country, as an isolated area with far-spread inhabitants,
lent itself to the effective launching and developing of a local chapter.
The appreciable Klan following in many of the large cities and much
of the countryside all over the United States during the 1920's must
73
14 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
not be discounted. But the secret fraternity drew its millions pri-
marily from the villages and small towns which had been left rather
undisturbed by the immigration, industrialization, and liberal thought
of modern America.
Eligible for membership in the Invisible Empire, Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan was any white, native-born, Christian, American male,
who (in order to debar Catholics) owed "no allegiance of any nature
or degree to any foreign government, nation, institution, sect, ruler,
person . . . " 2
Among those millions of individuals who could, and did, join the
order, one contemporary observer, Robert L. Duffus, found six classes:
(1) the organizers and promoters; (2) businessmen; (3) politicians;
(4) preachers and pious laymen; (5) incorrigible "joiners" and lovers
of "horseplay"; and ( 6 ) bootleggers who joined for protection. Using
this classification as the basis for a discussion of the caliber of men
who associated themselves with the Klan — and this classification will
have to serve for lack of another by a contemporary more knowledge-
able and objective — it becomes immediately apparent that Klansmen
belonged to a variety of socio-economic classes.
Not always, but sometimes, the leaders of a community would
join the local Klan chapter. In each new territory that the Kleagle
"worked," he made a practice, for obvious reasons, of approaching
the prominent citizens first. Imperial Kligrapp H. K. Ramsey, writing
of the Klan's Second Klonvokation, held in Kansas City, Missouri,
in September, 1924, declared that "Ministers of the Gospel, Attorneys
(some representing our common judiciary), Educators, business men
( a number of them millionaires and capitalists ) ... all sat together."
After the Kleagles had flattered and persuaded as many of the lead-
ing citizens of the community into joining the secret fraternity as they
could, they then turned their attention to enlisting the middle class.
The remark of Ramsey, as a member of the Klan's hierarchy, might
well be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Nevertheless, it is
most important to note that practically all anti-Klan writers described
the vast majority of Klansmen as members of America's respectable
middle class. One journalist, for example, wrote that most Klansmen
were "solid, respectable citizens, kind and loving husbands and fathers,
conscientious members of their churches"; another penned that most of
the persons who joined the order were "good, solid, middle-class citi-
zens, the ^backbone of the Nation'."
After the Kleagles had enlisted as many of the middle class as they
were able, they then directed their sales talk to the less desirable
EXPANSION IN THE 1920's 75
elements. Hustling agents "sought out the poor, the romantic, the
short-witted, the bored, the vindictive, the bigoted, and the ambitious,
and sold them their heart's desire." Stanley Frost, in his reportorial
study of the Klan for The Outlook, commented that he had not learned
of a single case in which a Kleagle refused an individual membership
in the secret fraternity — "no matter how vicious or dangerous he
might be" — if he had the necessary $10. Henry Peck Fry, who resigned
from the Klan as a disillusioned Kleagle, branded his former colleagues
for "selling memberships as they would sell insurance or stock."
It was this indiscriminate recruiting by Kleagles (resulting, naturally,
from the fact that their incomes depended upon the number of men
enlisted) that forced one W. M. Likins to sever all contacts with his
local Klan chapter. This individual joined the secret fraternity be-
cause he believed in its nationalistic and Protestant creed; he soon quit
the organization because he found it to contain an element of "low
characters, not educated or moral." Most chapters had their share
of the community's dregs on their membership lists. In the South
this element seemed to be an active minority in most localities, and a
forceful majority in some.
There was something about the United States of the 1920's that in-
fluenced a surprisingly large number of Americans in their decision to
join the order. The spirit of the times demands analysis.
The decade 1920-1930 was what it was largely because of the effects
of World War I. During the armed struggle America mistrusted and
mistreated aliens, deprived itself of food and fuel, and poured its
money into the Liberty Loan campaigns. But the war was over
too quickly for the nation to spend fully its ultra-patriotic psychological
feelings. In the decade following, America permitted itself to reject
the League of Nations, to curtail immigration, to deport aliens whole-
sale, and to accept the Klan with its motto of "one hundred per cent
Americanism."
Another result of the war was the intensifying of racial antipathies.
The bearing of arms and the freedom of contact with whites in France
by Negro servicemen and the receiving of high wages by many Negroes
of the South who moved to northern cities in order to work for war
industries made the colored people of the nation feel a human dignity
they had never before experienced. During the 1920's this served to
increase hostility on the part of whites and to decrease the endurance
of such hostility on the part of Negroes. The Klan was quick to
capitalize on the feeling of those whites who believed they saw every-
where Negro "uppitiness."
15 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
A third effect of World War I was the violent death of the old
American way of life — evangelical, didactic, prudish — and the sudden
birth of a new. (No event serves as a nation's cultural watershed
better than a war.) The 1920's meant "modernism." And "modern-
ism," among other things, meant the waning of church influence, parti-
cularly over the younger people; the breaking down of parental con-
trol; the discarding of the old-fashioned absolute moral code in favor of
a freer or "looser" personal one, which manifested itself in such
activities as purchasing and drinking contraband liquor, participating
in ultra-frank conversations between the sexes, wearing skirts close to
the knees, engaging in various extreme forms of dancing in smoke-
filled road houses, and petting in parked cars. A host of Americans
were unwilling, or unable, to adapt themselves to this post-war culture.
In the Klan they saw a bulwark against the hated "modernism," an
opportunity to salvage some of the customs and traditions of the old
religio-moralistic order. "
Although there was a spirit peculiar to the 1920's that influenced
many into joining the secret fraternity, each individual had his
own particular reason for donning the peaked hood and robe. Why
certain leading citizens of a community were prompted to associate
themselves with the Klan is not difficult to comprehend. Many business-
men most assuredly saw that by joining the Klan they could keep
old and get new trade through their fraternal contacts; some physicians
and lawyers must have realized that as the "best" of their community
they would probably be the officers of the local chapter of the ever-
growing order; numerous Protestant clergymen were undoubtedly won
over by the organization's highly moral and religious ritual and code; 8
large numbers of local politicians were ever mindful of the fact that
each fellow Klansman would equal one vote they could count on.
Droves of middle-class Southerners eagerly paid the $10 initiation
fee to the first Kleagle with whom they came in contact. Southern
history had idealized the old Klan as a protector of the "peculiar way
of life" below the Mason-Dixon fine to the extent that to many inhabit-
ants of that area the memory of the Reconstruction organization was
something sacred. Besides, there was in the 1920's a new, vibrant in-
terest in the old hooded order, for David W. Griffith's cinematic eulogy
on the Klan, "The Birth of a Nation," had been thrilling the movie-go-
ing public since its first release in 1915. There was hardly a southern
city that had not had the film for a return engagement. 4 Thus when
the twentieth century Klan was presented to the people as a memorial
EXPANSION IN THE 1920 s 17
to the old organization, half the battle for recruitment in the South
had been won.
That the bigoted of the nation found "truth" in the Klan is self-
evident, i It must be emphasized that the secret order was most
shrewd in the way it varied its appeal from one section of the country
to the other to suit the paramount prejudice of the area. \ The Klan's
plank was chameleonic: on the Pacific coast it was anti-Japanese; in the
Southwest, anti-Mexican; in the Middle West, anti-Catholic; 6 in the
Deep South, anti-Negro; in New England, anti-French Canadian; in
the large cities of the Northeast, anti-alien-born; on the Atlantic coast,
anti-Semitic.
Many ruffians took the sacred oath of allegiance to the Invisible
Empire. The Klan as a bulwark against "modernism" conveyed to
the simple and sincere members of the order nothing more than
a crusade to reform the wayward of their community. Translated into
practical application such a crusade meant teaching someone a "lesson"
— perhaps an adulterous neighbor, the town drunkard, a merchant
who habitually short-changed and short-weighted, or a corrupt official.
Taking punitive measures against a wrongdoer without benefit of the
regularly established police and court systems leads more often than
not to injustice and cruelty. While appearing to be acting selflessly
in behalf of the Klan, hoodlums saw a wonderful opportunity to get
their fill of sadistic orgies. Taking refuge under the hood and robe,
rowdies on a "night-riding" mission could wield with abandon the
tar bucket and bag of feathers, whip, branding iron, acid bottle, or
pocket knife.*
Why the bored, the romantic, the fraternally inclined, and the
lovers of "horseplay" joined the Klan is obvious. The world of the
Invisible Empire was a world of make-believe. One critic of the
order, Aldrich Blake, put it nicely: "When a man joins the Ku Klux
Klan, a sensation seems to come over him as definite as falling in love.
He simply drops out of society and enters a new world." During the
day a man was a breadwinner, going through an ofttimes dull, always
tiring, routine at the office or shop. But after dark a man became a
Knight, taking part in activities that were pure spectacle and mystery,
fun and excitement. How satisfying it must have been to many to have
been able to participate, for example, in a ritual-packed business meet-
ing in a room decked out with an altar full of symbolic objects and illu-
minated by a "fiery cross," or in an initiation ceremony long after
midnight in a lonely wood outside of town.
Then there was the costume. The robe of the rank and file of the
18 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
secret order was of white cotton, girdled with a sash of the same
color and material, and with a white cross upon a red background
stitched below the left shoulder. The headdress was a white cotton
peaked hood from which a red tassel hung. The entire outfit cost $5.
The costume of an officer was more resplendent and more expensive,
how much so depending upon the status of the officer in the Klan
hierarchy. The robe of a Grand Dragon, for example, was of orange
satin trimmed with military braid and embroidered in silk. Together
with an orange satin peaked hood, it cost $40. 7
There were parades. These were usually night affairs, held rather
often by most local Klans of the villages and small towns, and only
on very special occasions by those of the cities. Men, women, and chil-
dren from near and far would gather on the sidewalks of the main
thoroughfare of a hamlet to gaze upon the hooded and robed men,
beneath burning torches and behind a huge fiery cross, filing silently
down the street. A mayor from Texas, in describing the reaction of the
thousands of people who were witnessing a Klan parade in his small
town, avowed that throughout the entire demonstration, one could
almost hear the breathing of the crowd. 8 ,
A "Kalendar" was used. The fixed point in time employed for com-
puting the years of this calendar was 1867, when there was effected in
Nashville, Tennessee, a general organization of the many local post-
Civil War Klans. In the Kalendar the seven days of the week were,
in order, "dark, deadly, dismal, doleful, desolate, dreadful, and desper-
ate"; the five weeks of the month were "woeful, weeping, wailing,
wonderful, and weird"; the twelve months of the year were "bloody,
gloomy, hideous, fearful, furious, alarming, terrible, horrible, mourn-
ful, sorrowful, frightful, and appalling." Thus the date of the proclama-
tion of the revised Klan constitution, November 29, 1922, was "the
Doleful Day of the Weird Week of the Frightful Month of the Year of
the Klan LVI."
There was even "Klonversation." A typical verbal encounter:
"Ayak?" (Are you a Klansman?)
"Akia." (A Klansman I am.)
"Cyknar." ( Call your Klan number and Realm. )
"No.l, Atga." (Number 1 Klan of Atlanta, Georgia.)
"Kigy." (Klansman, I greet you.)
"Sanbog." (Strangers are near. Be on guard.)
Various emblems and tokens could be purchased. Any member of
the order was able to obtain a "Kluxer's Knifty Knife" for $1.25, a
bargain indeed, considering the fact that the little instrument was a
EXPANSION IN THE 1920' 's 79
"real 100 per cent knife for 100 per cent Americans." If a Klansman
wanted to surprise his spouse, he might get her, for only $2.25, a zircon-
studded Fiery Cross, which was outfitted with a clasp so that it could
be worn as a brooch. The larger-sized Fiery Cross, costing $2.90,
had a link at the top so that a Knight could wear it on the watch chain
across his vest. Five dollars purchased one a fourteen karat gold-
filled ring with a ten karat solid gold Klan emblem on a fiery red stone.
Naturally, it was expected of every individual who took the sacred
oath of allegiance to the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan to know and fully accept the beliefs of the order. The main
tenets in the creed of the secret fraternity were the following: (1)
memorialization of the original Klan; (2) white supremacy; (3) anti-
Semitism; (4) anti-foreign-bornism; (5) anti-Catholicism; (6) "pure"
Americanism; (7) Protestantism and strict morality.
Although the twentieth century Klan came to possess a more com-
plex ideology than the Reconstruction Klan, at its founding and for the
first five years of its existence its raison d'etre was the memorialization
of its nineteenth century namesake. Even after the Klan had been
transformed from a southern fraternity of a few thousand into a na-
tional organization with millions of members, its leaders were quick
to bring to mind that the order was the proud heir of the original
Klan. In 1922, while serving as Imperial Wizard ad interim, Clarke
declared, "By right of our sacred inheritance, we glory in wearing the
regalia of the original Ku Klux Klan as a memorial to that dauntless
organization of the Reconstruction Days." The following year "Colo-
nel" Simmons in one of his books wrote, "The present Klan is a
memorial to the original organization. In a sense it is the reincarna-
tion among the sons of the spirit of the fathers."
The twentieth century Klan copied a great deal from its precursor —
the hierarchy of officers, subdivisional structure, regalia, silent parades,
and mysterious language. There was only one thing, however, taken
over from the original Klan by the twentieth century order which
was ideological in nature rather than ritualistic or ornamental — and
that was the belief in white supremacy. 9
A quick and highly satisfactory method by which to approach the
Klan's thinking on the Negro (as well as on such topics as the Jew,
foreign-born, Catholic, or Americanism) is to dip into a few of the
writings of, addresses by, and interviews with Evans, for as Imperial
Wizard he spoke officially for every man in the order. In an article
for The North American Review, Evans declared:
"The world has been so made that each race must fight for its
20 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
life, must conquer, accept slavery or die. The Klansman believes that
the whites will not become slaves, and he does not intend to die before
his time.
"... the future of progress and civilization depends on the con-
tinual supremacy of the white race. The forward movement of the
world for centuries has come entirely from it. Other races each had
its chance and either failed or stuck fast, while white civilization
shows no sign of having reached its limit. Until the whites falter,
or some colored civilization has a miracle of awakening, there is not a
single colored stock that can claim even equality with the white; much
less supremacy."
Fully satisfied that centuries of history had proved the basic infer-
iority of the colored people all over the world, Evans felt compelled, in
a speech given in Dallas, Texas, on October 24, 1923, before 75,000
Klansmen, to debar from American nationality the Negroes: "They
have not, they can not, attain the Anglo-Saxon level . . . The low men-
tality of savage ancestors, of jungle environment, is inherent in
the blood-stream of the colored race in America. No new environ-
ment can more than superficially overcome this age-old hereditary
handicap."
But the Klan believed that America must act kindly and helpfully
toward its Negro inhabitants, Evans told an interviewer, for while
"America must face the fact that God Almighty never intended social
equality for Negro and white man," she "owes it to the Negro to give
him every privilege and protection and every opportunity consistent
with . . . National safety."
In a pamphlet much circulated by the Invisible Empire in 1923,
Ideals of the Ku Klux Klan, there appears a section entitled "Character
of the Organization," containing the following list:
"1. This is a white man's organization.
2. This is a gentile organization.
3. It is an American organization.
4. It is a Protestant organization." 10
Just as Evans pleaded the Klan's cause for white supremacy, he
explained feelingly on behalf of his fraternal followers why the order
was also a "gentile," "American," and "Protestant" one, striving to
make Protestantism and native-bornism prerequisites for American
nationality. 11
During an extended conversation with a journalist, Evans said that
the reason the Klan was antipathetic toward the Jew was that "for two
thousand years [he] has rigidly adhered to a racial limitation of inter-
EXPANSION IN THE 1920 's 21
marriage which makes it impossible for him to be assimilated into
American life wholly and unreservedly." At another time, however,
the Imperial Wizard attempted to show that the Jew was unassimilable
for reasons other than a disinclination to marry outside his faith: "By
every patriotic test, he is an alien and unassimilable. Not in a thousand
years of continuous residence would he form basic attachments com-
parable to those the older type of immigrant would form within a
year. The evil influence of persecutions is upon him. It is as tho he
was here today and might be forced to flee tomorrow. He does not
tie himself to the land."
But Evans, along with the Klan of course, grew gradually to consider
the Jew a far smaller problem than other "unassimilables" in the
nation: ( "For one thing, he is confined to a few cities, and is no
problem at all to most of the country. For another thing, his exclusive-
ness, political activities, and refusal to become assimilated are racial
rather than religious, based on centuries of persecution. They can-
not last long in the atmosphere of free America, and we may expect
that with the passage of time the serious aspects of this problem will
fade away."
The very heart of the Klan's thinking on the foreign-born in America
can be found in a single passage from one of Evans' articles for The
Forum:
"We believe that the pioneers who built America bequeathed to
their own children a priority right to it, the control of it and of its
future, and that no one on earth can claim any part of this inheritance
except through our generosity. We believe, too, that the mission of
America under Almighty God is to perpetuate and develop just the
kind of nation and just the kind of civilization which our forefathers
created . . . Also, we believe . . . that the American stock, which was
bred under highly selective surroundings, has proved its value and
should not be [through intermarriage with the foreign-born] mongrel-
ized . . . Finally, we believe that all foreigners were admitted with the
idea, and on the basis of at least an implied understanding, that they
would . . . adopt our ideas and ideals, and help in fulfilling our
destiny along those lines, but never that they should be permitted to
force us to change into anything else."
To the Klansman the foreign-born "problem" readily brought to
mind two other questions, universal suffrage and immigration. Re-
garding the former, the Klan was convinced that there must be a
"restricting [of] the franchise to men and women who are able
through birth and education to understand Americanism . . . [which]
22 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
means practically a restriction to native-born children who have had
the benefit of the training given by the American educational sy-
stem ..." As to immigration, "since American thought and life have
been and are being prevented from their true course by excessive alien
mixture," the secret order believed in "an immediate complete
stoppage of immigration; the stoppage to remain complete until reason
appears for again accepting foreign immigration."
In the Dallas speech of October 24, 1923, in which he declared
Negroes unworthy of American nationality, Evans described Catholics
as forming an element "whose assimilation is impossible without
the gravest , danger to our institutions," since "no nation can long
endure that permits a higher temporal allegiance than to its own
government."
Regarding Roman Catholic clerics, the Imperial Wizard had some-
thing special to say about their being incapable, because of religious
hindrance, of attaining the "100 per cent American standard": "To
them the Presidency at Washington is subordinate to the priesthood
in Rome. The parochial school alone is sufficient proof of a divided
allegiance, a separatist instinct. They demand that our future citizens
be trained not in public schools but under the control and influence of
a priesthood that teaches supreme loyalty to a religious oligarchy
that is not even of American domicile."
But the Klan's anti-Catholicism stemmed not quite so much from
an ignorance of Catholic dogma and ritual or the intentions of the
Catholic priesthood as it did from the belief that the Catholic Church
already controlled the votes of most of its communicants, and was
seeking to regain fully the vast political power it had in centuries
past. I Evans said, "The real objection to Romanism in America is
not that it is a religion, — which is no objection at all, — but that it is
a church in politics; an organized, disciplined, powerful rival to every
political government. A religion in politics is serious; a church in
politics is deadly to free institutions."
The Klan had a great deal to say about the "pure" Americanism
which it maintained was forever beyond the grasp of Negroes, Jews,
the foreign-born, and Catholics. Ever ready was the secret fraternity
to define Americanism, and to show the very special affinity its mem-
bers possessed for this phenomenon, and to offer counsel on how a loyal
attachment to the United States might be preserved, and even devel-
oped.
Acclaimed by his fellow Knights as "about the most 100 per cent
American of all the 100 per cent Americans in the United States,"
EXPANSION IN THE 1920' s 23
Evans surely felt confident of their support when he wrote the follow-
ing passage about the character of this intangible force, Americanism,
"It has, to be sure, certain defined principles . . . Democracy is one, fair
dealing, impartial justice, equal opportunity, religious liberty, inde-
pendence, self-reliance, courage, endurance, acceptance of individual
responsibility as well as individual rewards for effort, willingness to
sacrifice for the good of his family, his nation and his race before
anything else but God, dependence on enlightened conscience for
guidance, the right to unhampered development — these are funda-
mental."
Concerning the relationship of Knights to Americanism, two choice
bits from Evans' extended remarks on the subject will give a broad
hint of official Klan thinking: "The Klan is an organization to promote
practical patriotism — Americanism. Its ideal is to restore and then to
preserve and develop the old, fundamental ideas on which the Na-
tion was founded and which have made it great . . . "; "He [the Klans-
man] believes religiously that a betrayal of Americanism ... is treason
to the most sacred of trusts, a trust from his fathers and a trust from
God."
The Klan believed that only through a public educational system
which stressed the "value and beauty of true citizenship" could a
mighty and vibrant America be created. Therefore, the order swore to
fight for the extension of the public school system all over the nation,
in spite of the continuous refusal of certain bodies, such as the
Catholic Church, to give up their own private educational programs.
The Klan's interest in education, however, went deeper than a
concern for the protection of the public elementary and secondary
school system. ; As a matter of fact, the order felt so strongly about ed-
ucation for the preservation of Americanism that it made two separate
attempts to set up a Klan college, the first during Simmons' Imperial
Wizardship and the second during Evans'. { In August, 1921, the
Klan acquired Lanier University in Atlanta, the Baptist institution where
Simmons had once been an instructor in Southern history. Co-educa-
tional, and open to the children of native-born, white Protestants only,
the new school dedicated itself to the teaching of "pure, 100 per cent
Americanism." Fairing to gain an adequate enrollment, the Klan gave
up this academic enterprise, only to negotiate, two years later, for the
taking over of Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana. In this
instance, however, all attempts to acquire the institution met with
failure.
The Klan cherished a belief in Protestant Christian doctrine. Al-
24 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
though it did not require an applicant to hold church membership,
it did insist upon his embracing the tenets of Protestantism. The
Klan endorsed no one religious denomination. Many Knights, how-
ever, were adherents to "the old-time religion," with its faith in the
Bible as the literal and unalterable word of God. So many Klans-
men (especially those of the South) belonged to the evangelical sects
that the public came to think that one of the articles of faith of the
Klan was Fundamentalism. 12
Succinct expression of the official religious beliefs of the secret frater-
nity was once given by Imperial Klokard William James Mahoney:
"We magnify the Bible — as the basis of our Constitution, the founda-
tion of our government, the source of our laws, the sheet-anchor of
our liberties, the most practical guide of right living, and the source
of all true wisdom.
"We teach the worship of God.
"We honor the Christ, as the Klansman's only criterion of character.
And we seek at His hands that cleansing from sin and impurity, which
only He can give.
"We believe that the highest expression of life is in service and in
sacrifice for that which is right .... [and that] a Klansman must be
moved by unselfish motives, such as characterized our Lord the Christ,
and moved Him to the highest service and the supreme sacrifice for
that which was right."
Religion and morals go hand in hand. If the order was interested
in matters of religion, it was preoccupied with the question of morals.
Consider, for example, a broadside sent out by the Klan in Indiana.
Taking into account the propaganda-recruitment purpose for which the
handbill was intended, and disregarding its anti-Catholic portions, one
easily gathers from the printed sheet that the Invisible Empire re-
garded itself as a mighty bulwark of a proper code of morals. "Re-
member," the handbill read:
"Every criminal, every gambler, every thug, every libertine, every
girl ruiner, every home wrecker, every wife beater, every dope peddler,
every moonshiner, every crooked politician, every pagan Papist priest,
every shyster lawyer, every K. of C, every white slaver, every brothel
madam, every Rome controlled newspaper, every black spider — is
fighting the Klan. Think it over. Which side are you on?"
In one issue of perhaps the most outspoken pro-Klan newspaper in
the entire nation, the Houston Colonel May field's Weekly, editor Billie
Mayfield spelled out for his readers the specifics of the order's moral
crusade:
EXPANSION IN THE 1920 's 25
"It is going to drive the bootleggers forever out of this land and
place whiskey-making on a parity with counterfeiting.
"It is going to bring clean moving pictures to this country; it is going
to bring clean literature to this country ... It is going to break up
roadside parking, and see that the young man who induces a young girl
to get drunk is held accountable. It is going to enforce the laws of this
land; it is going to protect homes . . . The Klan means a new era in
the life of America. It means the return of old time Southern chivalry
and deference to womanhood; it means that the married man with
an affinity' has no place in our midst."
Noticeable about the preceding articles of faith of the Klan is their
defensive nature. The secret fraternity aimed to preserve, protect, and
prevent. The methods used to carry out this regulative program (in
addition to the common propaganda techniques so many organiza-
tions employ) might be reduced to the following: (1) "Klannishness";
(2) charitable enterprise; (3) "meddling" and terrorism; (4) political
activity.
Of all the methods employed by the Klan to carry out its regulative
program, the one used most frequently by the membership was the
practicing of Klannishness. To an inhabitant of the Invisible Empire
Klannishness meant, basically, two things: protecting the reputation,
physical being, and business interests of a Klansman and his family;
and defending America's flag, Constitution, laws and mores.
Imperial Wizard Evans once described the various facets of Klan-
nishness. According to him, there were three separate aspects of a
Klansman's relationship to his confreres — social, moral, and vocational.
Regarding vocational Klannishness he wrote, "Patronize Klan business,
turn profits to Klansmen if possible. *You must not tell this person why
you insist on him seeing this particular real estate man, other than that
he is worthy and deals honorably. He is a Klansman and you can
safely recommend him.' "
f It is only natural for a fraternal organization to encourage business
intercourse among its members. The practical application of the posi-
tive philosophy of vocational Klannishness, however, came to mean the
very negative practice of boycotting. ( Knights were never ordered to
stop trading with a particular businessman; they were simply given
information to show that the individual in question was, for one reason
or another, an undesirable member of the community. Free either to
act or not on such information, all Klansmen seem to have chosen the
former course. To illustrate, at a meeting of a local Klan in a town
in northern Ohio, one of the officers made the following remarks:
26 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
"I wish to tell you some of the things your fellow-townsmen have
done. The Elite Clothing Store sells half-cotton goods as pure wool.
Arthur Fredericks, a doctor, is a dope user. John Polaris, a restaurant-
keeper, has been trafficking in women. Michael OTlynn's soft-drink
parlor sells white mule. Walter Peters got a slice of that paving
contract graft. Jim Brady, the cigar-store man, has a starving wife in
Omaha and has been making love to some girls here. Benjamin Strauss,
the dry-goods man, underpays his girls, and besides expects too much
from them — you understand. Fred Preston's drugstore will give you the
white stuff if you know the sign. John Barton joined the Klan just to
get trade, and has been turned out."
The speech, noteworthy for its comprehensiveness and lack (on the
surface, at least) of racial or religious antipathy, contained no recom-
mendation for a course of action on the part of the audience. Klans-
men in that town, however, took much pride in the fact that over a
period of time sixty business establishments had fully succumbed to
their boycotting measures.
In the eyes of the public, a much less defensible boycotting which
developed out of the practice of vocational Klannishness was the
shunning of business concerns simply because the proprietor or his
help was Negro, Catholic, Jewish, or foreign-born. The Klan, it is
interesting to note, was once actually induced by a virulently anti-
Catholic organization to boycott a famous brand of cigarettes, Camels,
because they were manufactured by a concern said to have been con-
trolled by a well-known Catholic capitalist, Thomas Fortune Ryan.
Of all the activities of the Invisible Empire, the one which was
least open to attack by critics of the Klan was its participation in
charitable enterprises. I Members of the order were commanded to act
collectively to "relieve the injured and the opressed; to succor the
suffering and unfortunate, especially widows and orphans." Although
the national body rarely conducted a charity campaign of its own,
and the local chapter generally did not participate in the organized
drives conducted by the community to which it belonged, the latter
often gave a great deal of aid to the individually needy. It was usual
for the chapter to have a special committee which would investigate
requests for charity. The recipients of all Klan benevolence were
native-born, white Protestants, and the families of members were
given preference. 18
A most common form of Klan almsgiving was the aiding of a minister
and his congregation. Customarily, a handful of Klansmen, decked
out in full regalia, would enter a church during services, advance
EXPANSION IN THE 1920 's 27
silently toward the pulpit, present the pastor with an envelope contain-
ing money, and then file out quickly and quiedy. On Palm Sunday,
1922, at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento, Califor-
nia, for example:
"... six supposed members of the mystic order appeared with the
suddenness of an apparition . . . shortly after the close of the evening
sermon, marched to the altar with the precision of a military drill
squad, and handed the Rev. William E. Harrison, the pastor, a sealed
envelope, which contained a new $50 bank note and a typewritten
letter explaining the gift and commending the work of the minister.
"Moving in unison they left as quickly as they came, never uttering
a sound. . . . No one could be found . . . who saw them approach the
church or who witnessed their departure or the means of their con-
veyance. . . ."
A congregation that might have been displeased at having its services
interrupted by hooded and robed figures was usually too startled to
do anything but accept the gift docilely. There is one instance on
record, however, of an unheralded visit by Klansmen which ended
with their being routed by a particularly husky and irate usher.
Of all the practices of Klansmen, the one most often and vehement-
ly criticized was the taking of a meddling or terroristic course of action
in an attempt to prescribe personal conduct. I It appears that each
local Klan decided its chief task was the regulation of the morals of
the community in which it existed.! A typical chapter operated some-
thing like this: every Knight considered himself a dectective whose
duty it was to go about the community spying on the morals of his
fellow residents, the objects of the surveillance being entirely unaware
of it, as only Klansmen knew who the members of the order were.
When the chapter met, every Knight reported the information he had
collected on his neighbors' morals. The assembled body then passed
judgment on each case, after which it decided the course of action
necessary and proper for the reforming of immorality.
The local Klan's course of action in the reforming of personal con-
duct usually resulted in the chapter's appointing a select committee
which remonstrated with the delinquent on the evil of his ways. If
thi§ approach failed to bring about an improvement in conduct, the
chapter then reported him and his sins to the police, offering to those
officials its full moral support. Should the law authorities fail to act
( in which case the local Klan attempted to retire them from office and
fill their places with individuals deemed more worthy, preferably
Klansmen), and should the wrongdoer still remain unregenerate, the
28 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
chapter then turned to a more extreme measure — ostracism, perhaps.
The local Klan expected its program of ostracism to force the
wrongdoer into self-imposed exile. An actual case of a chapter's use
of ostracism is worth citing. In a town of an eastern state, a hard-
working, rather reliable young man was engaging in an illicit sexual
relationship with a notoriously wanton woman. Threatened by tele-
phone that he would regret it if he did not leave his mistress within
three days, he chose to remain with her. Four days later his employer
fired him. The following day his landlord demanded an exorbitant
raise in rent. The milkman no longer went to the door. The butcher
failed to stop his wagon. Merchants treated him with rudeness in
their shops, some telling him bluntly that his patronage was no longer
desired. By the end of the week only one grocer (in defiance of a
telephone warning ) would sell the man food, and this storekeeper was
shortly brought into line by the loss of nearly three-quarters of his
trade. Within two weeks the local Klan's program of ostracism had
fully proved itself. The newly-created pariah moved to a hovel out-
side of town, where a few friends gave him aid and comfort until he
was able to find employment and settle down elsewhere.
Rarely did any local Klan resort to a physical disciplining of an in-
dividual who had offended against its moral ideas. | When a chapter
did so, the press naturally gave the incident a great deal of coverage.
Following are some illustrations of the Klan's use of corporal punish-
ment. In October, 1920, an attorney from Yonkers, New York, Peter
McMahon, while in the South to assist a client in a dispute over an
estate, was taken from a train at Trenton, South Carolina, and beaten
by a gang of individuals dressed as Klansmen. On April 1, 1921, a
Negro bellhop from a Dallas hotel was abducted by a group of hooded
men who branded him with acid on the forehead with the letters
"K. K. K." Two months later, in Tenaha, Texas, a woman believed to
have been committing adultery was seized, stripped of her clothing,
and tarred and feathered. Another resident of the state, a woman
from Goose Creek, was kidnapped by hooded and robed men who
cut off her hair and tacked the tresses to a post in the center of town.
On July 16, 1921, a sixty-eight year old farmer was whipped in War-
rensburg, Missouri. The following day, in Miami, Florida, an arch-
deacon of the Episcopal Church was whipped, tarred and feather-
ed. A few days later a man and woman at Birmingham, Alabama,
received a flogging at the hands of a mob. In August, 1921, in Mason
City, Iowa, persons who "preferred to be known as the Ku Klux Klan"
forced a Socialist, Mrs. Ida Couch Hazlett, from a speaker's platform
-V
EXPANSION IN THE 1920' 's 29
into a car, drove her to the outskirts of the city, and threw her out with
a threat of greater physical violence if she returned. That same month,
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a ne'er-do-well by the name of Nathan Hantaman
was dragged by Klansmen from his residence to a waiting car which
deposited him just outside the city, where he was whipped until his
back was a swollen mass of ugly welts. On August 24, 1922, near
Mer Rouge, Louisiana, while returning from a picnic, two arch-critics
of the local Klan of that town, Filmore Watt Daniels and Thomas F.
Richards, were seized by hooded men. Two months later the badly
decomposed corpses of Daniels and Richards were found floating on
nearby Lake La Fourche. 11
| Two points must be made regarding the preceding illustrations of
Klan violence, as indeed of any case of Klan lawlessness. First, since
the individuals committing the assaults were hidden behind regalia,
they could just as easily have not been members of the secret order.
Second, if the men who engaged in these outrages were Knights, they
could have been taking action without first obtaining the approval of
the local chapter as a whole, f
Of all the methods used by the Klan in the 1920's to put into effect
its program, the one concerning which the scantiest records of the
secret order were left, the one about which contemporary observers
had the most to say supported by the least evidence, and the one which
later students of the organization tended to avoid treating, was its
engaging in political activity. * Thus it follows that of all the many ,
important aspects of the Klan the least understood is its role in Ameri-
can politics. / What various Knights have said about whether the
order actually was, or should have been, in politics, will certainly shed
light on that area of the Invisible Empire's activity.
Chapter III
THE KLAN ENTERS THE POLITICAL ARENA
The political influence of the Klan during the 1920's was far greater
than its numerical strength would indicate. The order had developed
into the most energetic leader of the many millions of Americans who
adhered to a brand of politics derived from chauvinism and religio-
racial antipathies.
In 1925 The National Kourier, an official newspaper of the Klan,
declared that it would not be very long before all political parties
would have to "reckon" with the Invisible Empire. There is in the
remark an underlying note of rejoicing. Such exultation, however,
pales next to any one of many boasts made by Klansmen regarding
their organization's political power. Bragging there was about the
tremendous influence the Invisible Empire would soon have on every
branch of the local, state, and federal governments. This boasting of
Knights about the political strength of their organization must have
led the merely curious outsiders as well as the deeply concerned ob-
servers to ask themselves why Klansmen considered it so very neces-
sary for the Invisible Empire to be a powerful political force in the
nation, and how they believed their order could achieve such force.
{ As to why, Klansmen had a variety of things to say. First, the
political power of the Roman Catholic Church had to be destroyed, f
The May, 1923, issue of the widely circulated Klan magazine, The
Imperial Night-Hawk, petulantly told its readers, "Wails of indigna-
tion arise from Catholics about the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan taking
part in politics, yet it is all right for Catholic fraternal orders to line
up votes for Catholic candidates and support at the polls the policies
of Rome." Later that year Evans felt compelled to announce that
"until such time as the Roman Catholic hierarchy announces Christ's
doctrine of supremacy of State over Church in governmental affairs,
we shall steadfastly oppose the political interference of Roman Catholic
organizations in political matters in America."
Second, whatever political influence the Negroes, Jews, and foreign-
born possessed had to be checked. The deliverer (his name was
withheld from publication) of one of the "Inspirational Addresses" of
the Second Imperial Klonvokation, held in Kansas City, Missouri, in
30
THE KLAN ENTERS THE POLITICAL ARENA 37
September, 1924, noted: "They talk about eliminating the Klan from
politics. When you have eliminated the Polish bloc from politics
in America, and the Italian bloc, and the Negro bloc, and the Jewish
bloc, . . . then with reason you can begin to talk about the elimination
of other blocs. Speaking before a group of white supremacists
in Atlanta on political conditions in that city, "Colonel" Simmons, in
less than temperate phrases, put forward the Klan's method for sti-
fling the politically stirring Negroes of the capital of Georgia in partic-
ular and of the nation in general:
"I am informed that every *buck nigger' . . . who attains the age of
twenty-one years, has gotten the money to pay his poll tax and register,
and that . . . these apes are going to line up at the polls, mixed up there
with white men and white women.
"Lord, forgive me, but that is the most sickening and disgusting sight
you ever saw. You've got to change that. . . . [Klansmen] will go, if
they can, to the Governor's chair, or the Presidency of this nation.
There is only one way to stop it. That is to out-vote them. This is a
sacred duty that we must measure up to. . . . Keep the negro . . . where
he belongs. They have got no part in our political or social life."
Third, politicians who prostituted themselves, in any manner, in
order to attain or maintain office must be denied positions of public
trust. >i One leading Klansman, a well-known New York City physician,
and an officer of the Fifth Avenue church to which he belonged, while
having no right to speak officially for his fraternity, must have conveyed
the feelings of every one of his fellow Knights when he said, "Every-
body knows that politicians nowadays cater to all kinds of 'elements,'
mostly selfish, some corrupt, and some definitely anti-American. They
cater to the . . . bootleg vote, the vice vote, and sometimes even the
violently criminal vote. What the Klan intends to do is to make them
pay some attention to . . . the decent, God-fearing, law-abiding vote."l
"Ability and purity in public life are our greatest objectives," a prom-
inent Klansman declared about himself and his confreres during an
interview conducted by a close observer of the order, Edward Price
Bell of the Chicago Daily News. "Only ability and purity in public
life, in our opinion," the Knight went on to say, "can save democracy.
When we fight for these things, therefore, we are fighting for demo-
cracy."
\ How did Klansmen believe that their organization could become the
powerful force in American politics they so desired? First, they satis-
fied themselves that just informing the public of the patriotic, religious,
and moral aspects of the Klan's ideology could have a positive effect
32 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
upon the nation's political morality. I In his volume on the Invisible
Empire, Leroy Amos Curry, an unsuccessful candidate for Congress
from Oklahoma and one of the functionaries of the Disciples of Christ,
wrote the following about the fraternal order of which he was one of
the apologists extraordinary: "I believe that this great organization
can render an immeasurable service to the people of this country when
those seeking political office are led to a more elevated plane of
thought and activity by the ideals of this institution. . . ."
r Second, Knights attached great weight to the secret fraternity's ef-
fectiveness in directing the voting of the American electorate, both
the Klan and non-Klan elements, through an organized information
service. \E. H. Lougher, a Klansman from Kentucky, while writing
about the political hold of the secret fraternity on the Blue Grass State,
contended that the Klan never attempted to "control" votes; it had a
"higher, safer" program. "The Klan will educate and influence the
public to vote for the best candidates in every election, regardless of
party," he explained. "It has been demonstrated absolutely this can
be done. Give people full and complete information on every candi-
date, who and what he is. Tell men facts about all issues from sources
they can trust. Then leave it to them to form their own opinions and
exercise their own judgment." In the October 27, 1923, issue of perhaps
the most significant Klan magazine, The Dawn, there appeared an
article by the Grand Dragon of the Realm of Illinois, entitled "The
Attitude of the Ku Klux Klan Toward Politics and Political Parties," a
portion of which follows :
"Let each Organization, Great Titan and Field Man immediately
send in to this office their recommendations along political lines, Na-
tional, State and County officers, for the approaching election for our
careful consideration and investigation of the respective candidates
as to their qualifications, experience, etc., with a view to disseminating
that information to the Klansmen with our recommendation, indorse-
ment or comment for their guidance at the polls, so that they may cast
an intelligent ballot, predicated upon prior information, data, and
investigation, showing the true facts about the respective candidates'
qualifications or lack of ability to fill the position to which he aspires.
. . . There is no excuse for the Klansman elector going to the polls
uninformed as to who is running and who is best qualified for the
particular position. This information can always be secured from
these headquarters, as we make it our business to know who is running
for office in this State. We are always ready, able and willing to give
authentic information concerning all candidates for any particular
THE KLAN ENTERS THE POLITICAL ARENA 33
office and with such information the elector can weigh their qualifica-
tions for himself and act accordingly, or even accept the recommenda-
tions of tins office with full assurance that they are made impartially
without preference to party alliances, but solely on the merits of the
particular candidate endorced [sic] and a vote for such a candidate
would be intelligently cast."
Now and then a publication of the order went a step further than
merely furnishing information of a political nature to help Knights
decide for themselves what candidates to support. In one issue of The
Watcher on the Tower, a Klan magazine published weekly in Seattle,
Washington, there appeared a directive to the subscribers which read
as follows : "Get behind the 100% candidates for your next commission-
ers. You Know Who They Are. One of the present incumbents
must be defeated; one should have your support. For the Commission-
er of Finance, if you do not already know who is worthy, Ask a
Klansman."
/^j I Third, Klansmen put their full trust in their order's unflagging deter-
\J rhination and ever-increasing ability to swing elections by supporting
or opposing — as a body — particular candidates or party tickets. 1
"Moving in solid phalanx at the ballot box," Klansmen resolved "to
put men who are 100 per cent American in charge of the affairs of the
nation," a pamphlet of the order by C. Lewis Fowler announced.
During the period when the anti-Klan forces were working the hardest
to prove the lawlessness of the Invisible Empire, one Knight, George
Estes, wrote that "Neither the Klan as a body nor any of its individual
members has perpetrated any crimes whatever except it be the crime
of voting judiciously at the state elections." To the Klansmen of
Kansas, Charles H. McBrayer, the Grand Dragon of the Realm of
Kansas, issued this statement regarding elections in their state:
"Of course you realize that it is necessary for us to move in solid
formation if we [are to] bring about the results we all desire. There-
fore, it is considered best for all of us to refrain from pledging our
support as an individual to any candidate, until after all information
has been assembled, and the Klansmen in the state have expressed a
sentiment for certain candidates. After this has happened, it will then
be very essential that we all support the same candidate, in so far as
political party alignment will permit."
Included in the works on the Invisible Empire by "Klanswoman"
Alma Birdwell White of New Jersey, who enjoyed local fame as a
lecturer, preacher, and founder of Bible institutes, were many political
cartoons. One depicted a Klansman in full regalia, holding in his
34 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
hand a club labeled "ballot," chasing off three characters whom he
considered politically powerful — the anti-Prohibitionist, the Jew
(attached to whom were tags reading "corrupting movies" and "im-
modest fashions" ) , and the Catholic priest; another portrayed a Knight,
properly attired in the order's garb, wielding a huge club labeled "the
ballot" against a hairy, boney-fingered, long-nailed hand marked
"Rome," grasping for land entitled "U.S.A."; still another cartoon
showed an army of Klansmen standing in quasi-battle formation as
some of its number were battering down the walls of political Roman
Catholicism with tremendous logs on which were written "mens votes,"
"womens votes," and "the ballot."
The Dawn also had its share of political cartoons. One very strik-
ing drawing, for example, entitled "If They are Wise a Word is Suf-
ficient," was of the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey,
each of which had a worried look on its face, being told by the Klan
(typified by a hooded and robed Knight), "Gentlemen, if you expect
my support you must First clean House. Get rid of your rotten Politi-
cians, and construct your platforms on sound American principles."
Last of all, Klansmen took it for granted that they should be ever
willing, when duty called, to throw their "hoods into the ring." "When
necessity demands that they [Klansmen] enter the political arena no
motive other than that of service to others can actuate them," The
Dawn declared. "A desire to bring about law enforcement; to wipe
out immorality, to improve the public land system, aid in solving the
immigration problem, — these are the things that will compel Klans-
men to accept public office at the hands of that vast majority of their
fellow Americans who have similar ideals of what public service
means."
Interesting it is that practically every spokesman for the Klan who
admitted that the organization was in politics denied it at some other
time. ^While the material available in which Klansmen deny that their
fraternity was actively engaged in American politics is not nearly
so extensive as that in which they admit to it, it is, nevertheless, large
enough to be taken into consideration and dealt with at some length.
i It. must be noted at the outset, however, that even the little material
available in which Klansmen disavow their order's being occupied with
matters political fails to impress — because of what is said and how
it is said — later students of the organization.
At the first annual meeting of the Grand Dragons, held in Asheville,
North Carolina, in July, 1923, a Great Titan of the Realm of Texas
delivered a paper emphasizing that the Invisible Empire was not in
THE KLAN ENTERS THE POLITICAL ARENA 35
politics. He maintained that although the Klan demanded of its
members a patriotism toward the United States which could not be
proved other than by participating in the nation's politics, "the organi-
zation which we here represent is not a political organization."
From Lougher, the Kentucky Klansman, came this notably ambigu-
ous declaration: "The Klan is not a political party. We believe that
to identify the Klan with or espouse the cause of any political party
would be fatal to the organization and to the real worth of the crusade.
The Klan, however, is mighty active politically, and every Klansman
is a politician in the highest sense of the word."
What did those who were best able to speak for the order — Simmons,
Clarke, and Evans — offer to bolster the assertion that the Invisible
Empire did not seek to participate in politics? Even in its early days
the secret fraternity had been charged, mostly by newspapermen, with
taking part in local and state politics. Thus it was that during the
Congressional investigation of Klan activities held in 1921, Imperial
Wizard Simmons felt compelled to make a statement magnificently
unequivocal: "The Ku-Klux Klan is not a political organization, nor
does it seek political power, although this has been charged against
us." Uttered Imperial Kleagle Clarke: the Klan "is not a political
party, it will take no part in political controversies, and it has nothing
to do with partizan [sic] issues. Klansmen will follow the dictates of
their individual conscience in casting their votes. As an organization,
we have no candidates — no favored party."
Addressing himself to the task of demonstrating that the Klan was
not in politics, Imperial Wizard Evans had more to contribute than
Simmons and Clarke. To the question put to him during an interview
conducted by Bell, the Chicago newspaperman, "What do you mean
when you say the Klan, as such, will take no part in politics?" Evans
replied:
"I mean that the Klan is not a political party. Klansmen may belong
and do belong to all parties and to no party. Every Klansman knows
his principles and he votes for the candidate or the party in whose
hands he regards his principles as safe or comparatively safe. To be
sure, Klansmen, like other men, will use their influence to have parties
and candidates further their objects; and, equally to be sure, if a candi-
date appears in the political arena blatently proclaiming his hostility
to our order and his purpose to destroy it if he can, Klansmen are
likely to vote against him."
At' the Klonvokation held in Kansas City, Missouri, in September,
1924, Evans, after outlining the future aims of the order, shouted,
36 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
"The Klan is not in politics, neither is it a political party." He con-
tinued, "We will permit no political party and no group of politicians
to annex, own, disown, or disavow us. Where our conscience leads
us, we will be found, regardless of who we find in the different political
camps." A few years later the Imperial Wizard again denied a link
between the Klan and political parties. "Neither the Republican party
nor the Democratic party . . . has ever directly or indirectly furnished
a single dollar to the Klan for any purpose whatever. The Klan seeks
no political preferment and has no political affiliations." Such was a
portion of the statement issued by Evans in reply to the charge that
the secret fraternity was being financed by the Republican national
committee in order to gain its support against the Democratic party
in the presidential election of 1928.
Prompted by reports from critics of the Klan as to irregularities
regarding the order's finances, Evans came forward in October, 1928,
with a promulgation, in which he first disputed that the organization
was insolvent, next declared that the Klan would be able to prove that
it was not spending any money in politics, and then added (as if an
afterthought) that members of the Klan, including the Imperial Wiz-
ard, did not desire public office.
But of all the disavowals by Evans of the Invisible Empire's being
in politics, the one that must have instantly arrested the attention of
the contemporary observer of the order was made in Dallas, Texas, on
March 12, 1926: "The policies of the Klan have been changed, and
it is now completely out of politics. It is not interested in the candidacy
of any man or woman." Perhaps Evans momentarily lost sight of the
fact that being "now completely out of" an activity could mean only
one thing — that it had once been engaged in the activity.
It should be emphasized that being a political party and being
engaged in politics are not the same thing; the latter can stand in-
dependent of the former. The affirmation by Klansmen that their
order was not a political party can be readily accepted. However, the
assertion by Knights that although some of their confreres, like many
other American citizens, actively engaged in politics, the Klan as an
organization did not do so, is unacceptable. ] For there are facts to
show that the Klan as an organization did make a serious effort to
become a significant power in the nation's politics.
The secret fraternity came to realize that to achieve this goal of
power it would be necessary to adopt the methods of an American
political machine. From embracing such a policy the order suffered
three deleterious effects — it aroused the wrath of the American public,
THE KLAN ENTERS THE POLITICAL ARENA 37
which did not want a fraternal organization active in the political field;
it had to rely upon whatever skill was possessed by its leaders, the
overwhelming number of whom lacked political training and experience,
and thus political acumen; it dissipated its energies on all sorts of mat-
ters political on each of the three governmental levels — local, state,
and national.
Chapter IV
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS
The chances were that not long after a local Klan had been establish-
ed it would find itself participating in the political affairs of the com-
munity in which it was situated. The chapter would make special
drives to procure as members municipal executives, city and county
legislators, court officials, and police authorities. Then, too, if the
chapter were strong enough to exercise the balance of power in elec-
tions, it would place in public office candidates who were Knights or
sympathetic toward the philosophy and methods of the order. I Being
successful in these endeavors meant that the chapter was able to obtain
local legislation favoring its program and, perhaps more important, to
secure its activities from interference from the law. Illustrative of the
latter, sheriffs who were members of, or on friendly terms with, the
secret fraternity could appoint deputies until every Knight in a partic-
ular county was commissioned to preserve the peace; judges and pro-
secuting attorneys who were Klansmen or pro-Klan could be of service
if the chapter were brought to trial for acts of terrorism.
The participation of the Klan in state politics and in Congressional
and presidential elections received an immense amount of coverage
in the newspapers and magazines of the nation. Quite the contrary
was true of the participation of the order in local politics. For one
thing, such activity was less newsworthy. Also, it was more difficult
to ascertain the facts of the case. The reason is twofold. First, leaders
of the local Klans were tight-lipped about the activity of their organi-
zation in the political affairs of the community. They were perhaps
afraid of saying a bit too much, thereby antagonizing superiors ready
with swift and heavy punishment, higher-ups who, by the way, every
now and then permitted themselves to recite something quite revealing
about the Klan's role in politics on the state and national levels. Sec-
ond, although frequently easy to guess, it was impossible to prove
which chapters had succeeded in placing Knights in public office,
since the Klan, as a secret fraternity, never made known its member-
ship lists.
The sole reason given by the Invisible Empire for its entering into
local politics was a desire to "clean up" the municipality or county.
38
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 39
In June, 1923, the two leading magazines of the order, The Dawn and
The Imperial Night-Hawk, ran the very same article emphasizing that
one of the great principles for which the Klan stood and fought was
"CLEAN municipal government!" Just a month later a Great Titan
of the Realm of Texas happily announced that in municipalities which
in the past had been "honey-combed with administrative graft . . .
slowly but surely the campaign of the Klan for good government has
made itself felt." The battle, however, was still to be waged. The
following year a pamphlet of the order affirmed that in 'local affairs"
even more than ever the Klan demanded: "(1) law enforcement; (2)
stopping private graft and the spoils system; (3) healthful environ-
ments in public schools; (4) clean moral surroundings for children."
A satisfactory method of studying the participation of the southern
wing of the Klan in local politics is to discuss separately each state
involved. Restricting the survey to the eleven states that comprised
the Confederacy plus two of the border slave states where the southern
political tradition has remained strong, Maryland and Kentucky, it
appears logical to treat each in the general direction of from the Upper
South to the Deep South, and from the Atlantic coast westward to the
Mississippi River and beyond.
\The most un-American state in Dixie, as measured by the Klan
standard, was Maryland. There were some chapters of the secret
order in the commonwealth, but they were so scattered and their
strength so negligible that most Marylanders did not take them serious-
ly. | As a result, instances of newspaper coverage of the fraternity's
participation in local politics were few and far between. Only one
journalistic account need be brought forward for an indication of the
way the local Klans of Maryland would attempt to interfere with the
execution of the duties of a duly elected officeholder. On July 26,
1924, the chapter in Myersville, a village fifteen miles from Frederick,
sent a threatening message to Judge A. T. Brust, stating that "some-
thing real" would happen if he showed publicly any sympathy toward
the victim of a tar and feather episode, and if he did not release the
persons held as members of the mob committing the outrage. Whether
"something real" meant political retribution against Brust is open to
question.
In the neighboring state of Virginia the order was more successful
in winning the friendship and co-operation of the servants of local
government. Chief Charles A. Sherry of the Richmond police depart-
ment declared that he had never heard more patriotic speeches in his
city than those delivered by Imperial Wizard Simmons. In 1924, in
40 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Graham, in the southwestern part of Virginia, the entire police force
actually marched in a Klan parade on Washington's birthday; the
following year, in Danville, near the North Carolina border, mounted
policemen led a public Klan procession. Such action on the part of
the constabulary of the Old Dominion might be understood if one takes
into consideration that a high crime rate among certain groups of the
economically and socially depressed colored population made the police
sympathetic toward the anti-Negro views of the Klan. f
One Virginia policeman who was charged with and denied belonging
to the Klan was Chief Charles Barney Borland of Norfolk. The affair
soon became a cause celebre. In the June 10, 1921, issue of the Weekly
News Letter, an official confidential publication sent out by the Pro-
pagation Department headed by Imperial Kleagle Clarke, there ap-
peared a communication from the Exalted Cyclops of the Norfolk Klan
stating that Borland had been enlisted in the ranks of his chapter.
Included in the Exalted Cyclops' extremely colorful picture of Bor-
land's initiation into Knighthood was a description of the police of-
ficial's thanking 300 fellow Klansmen after they rose to pledge their
support in the enforcement of the law in the city. To all this the Chief
of Police offered a vigorous denial, replying that his one and only ex-
perience with the Klan was giving permission to the order to hold
a public mass meeting in the Armory Hall, which he did deign to
attend.
In nearby Newport News a similar incident excited great public
interest. This time, however, more than a half dozen city officials,
both elected and appointed, were involved. In the Weekly News Let-
ter, dated May 20, 1921, a Kleagle reported that in Newport News
"we have the chief of police, the commonwealth attorney, the post-
master, the police court judge, members of the city council. . . ." Chief
of Police Campbell and the other civil authorities designated by the
Kleagle promptly denied that they were or ever had been members
of the Klan.
What of the secret order in local elections in Virginia? In the
August, 1921, open primary in Richmond the candidate of the Demo-
cratic party for Commissioner of Revenue was John E. Rose, Jr. The
interesting aspect is that Rose, a member of the City Council, had
openly boasted of membership in the Klan. Civil servants of Richmond
who were Knights were credited with having swung the victory in the
primary to Rose; these were one-third of the aldermen, several mem-
bers of the Common Council, a score of firemen, and about twenty-five
policemen.
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 41
In Staunton, the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, the local Klan held
on July 7, 1924, the type of parade for which the secret fraternity had
become famous. The reason was to celebrate the outcome of a recent
municipal election. Of the candidates sponsored by the chapter for
public office in Staunton, fully 80 per cent had been elected. A statistic
such as this raises the question of whether these candidates would
have been elected without Klan support. One could answer that
seekers of public office who were approved and aided by the Invisible
Empire might very well have been popular enough to gather on their
own the votes necessary to insure their success; and if the fraternity
desired to make an election a referendum on the Klan issue, it would
find that it could not obtain one, because in an election there is more
than one issue, although this is admittedly not so usually the case on
the local level as on the state or national.
R. Walton Moore, one of the most respected members of the House
of Representatives since his entering that body in 1919, and H. Earlton
Hanes, a lawyer who had served in the House of Delegates from Fair-
fax County for two terms, contended for the nomination for Congress
from the Eighth District of Virginia in the Democratic primary of
August, 1928. 1 Moore announced that he was backing for the presi-
dency that year Alfred E. Smith, while Hanes remained mum on the
subject. Since Smith was the enemy of every Knight, it is no wonder
that Hanes promptly gained the support of the secret fraternity within
the Eighth District, which in the words of one competent political
reporter was "rather badly infested with Klansmen." Notwithstand-
ing the support Hanes received from the Klan, Moore's distinguished
political record got him the Democratic nomination, and he went
on to victory that November over his Republican opponent.
Over the Appalachians in Kentucky the Klan was far less important
in local politics than it was in Virginia. In the Blue Grass State the
secret order was unable to gain the confidence of the judiciary. Cir-
cuit Judge Carl Henderson in his charge to the grand jury in opening
the 1921 fall term of the Hopkins County Court at Madisonville asked
for a complete probing of the activities of the Klan in the area; Judge
A. T. W. Manning in Circuit Court in London, Laurel County, on
June 1, 1924, delivered a scathing rebuke to the fraternity, and then
promptly excused from jury duty two men who acknowledged mem-
bership in it; in his charge to the grand jury at the opening of Circuit
Court in Somerset, Pulaski County, in the fall of 1924, Judge H. C.
Kennedy condemned the Klan, saying that there was no room in the
county for such an organization.
42 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
So too did various civil executives criticize the Invisible Empire.
For example, following announcements in the August, 1921, issues of
the local newspapers advertising for recruits for the Klan, Mayor
George W. Smith of Louisville made a statement condemning the order
and asserting that he would use "every lawful means to prevent and
suppress its growth in our cornmunity." The Board of Public Safety,
acting in accord with the mayor, refused the fraternity permission to
hold a meeting in the city. 2
However, this was not the last that Louisville heard of the Invisible
Empire. In the municipal election of 1925 the Democratic party was
forced to switch the head of its ticket as a result of the Republican
Campaign Committee's offering the Democratic mayoralty candidate,
William T. Baker, $1,000 if he could prove that he was not, nor ever
had been a member of the Klan. Two days before opening of the
polls, Baker admitted he had been a Knight at one time, and withdrew
from the race. Joseph T. O'Neil, former Judge of the State Court of
Appeals, was selected in his place. In the extremely close election
contest O'Neil lost out to his Republican opponent, Arthur T. Will.
The backers of Will viewed the victory as stemming from the rift in
the Democratic ranks.
The Paducah municipal election of 1923 should be noted. Wynn
Tully, the Democratic candidate for mayor, had taken a leading part
in the move to prevent a Klan speaker's being given a permit to lecture
in the city. After hailing Tully for his action, the Paducah News Demo-
crat forecast his election, since the Klan in a scolding campaign against
the Democratic mayoralty candidate had "thrown many Republican
and Independent votes to him." Tully was the only man on his ticket
who was not elected. A spokesman for the Invisible Empire declared
that "the fact that all other candidates on Mr. Tully 's ticket were
elected, shows conclusively that his act in aiding the faction that
attempted to stop the Klan speaker brought about his downfall."
In Tennessee the influence of the Klan on the local political scene
was obvious and direct. Speaking for the Knoxville chapter of the
order, in April, 1922, C. Lewis Fowler declared that it was in the city
hall and on the police force. He said further that the local chapter,
as a powerful political force, was going to make certain that the
Negroes of Knoxville were never given the chance to hold public
office.
Although the picture of the strength of the local Klan in Knoxville
as given by Fowler cannot be taken as fully true because of the ax
that 'the Knight obviously had to grind, descriptions of the weight of
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 43
the order in two other cities of Tennessee, Johnson City and Chat-
tanooga, can be more readily accepted, since they are related by men
who had left the Invisible Empire after having been most active in it.
Ex-Kleagle Henry Peck Fry told of "a man who stood very high" in
the local Klan in Johnson City during the early 1920's who, after first
having talked about holding a parade of hooded and robed Knights,
and then having been reminded of the provisions of the Code of Ten-
nessee against wearing of masks in public, replied that this made no
difference since the Klan controlled the politics of Johnson City. "We
will parade anyhow," he concluded. "Nobody will dare stop us."
Stetson Kennedy, who wrote widely-acclaimed exposes of the Klan
of the 1930's and 1940's, was once told by ex-Knight J. B. Stoner that
"back in 1924 the Klan was extremely strong in Chattanooga and at
that time elected city judge McGoy, sheriff John Tate, and others."*
The 1923 municipal election in Memphis makes a good case study
for one interested in the participation of the southern wing of the
Klan in local politics. The Memphis chapter of the order had been
very active in the past,* and in the fall of that year was busily urging
every Knight in the city to vote the ticket which it as a body had en-
dorsed. For every office — from mayor to alderman — the local Klan
had tapped a candidate. On November 1, just one week before the
election was to take place, a crowd of Knights marched to the court
house, entered the office of John Brown, the election commissioner,
and insisted that additional officials be appointed to serve at the polls
in order to "preserve some semblance of fairness" in the forthcoming
political contest. On November 9, when all the returns were in,
Mayor Rowlett Paine and his entire administration but one (a city
judge), running on the anti-Klan platform, had been re-elected. The
sole incumbent who lost the race did so to the Klan-supported Clifford
Davis. Davis owed his victory very clearly to the fact that the anti-
Klan vote was badly split for city judge, three factions dividing the
opposition. The New York Times described this decisive defeat of
the order in the Memphis election as "the biggest black eye the
Klan has yet received in Southern territory east of the Mississippi."
Further, the newspaper said that everywhere in Tennessee the Klan
was losing its influence in local politics, and predicted that although
the order would poll a considerable vote in the 1924 elections, it would
not be a controlling factor.
( The prediction of the New York Times came true. Perhaps the
outstanding feature of the local elections of 1924 in Tennessee was the
poor showing made by the Invisible Empire, j For example, in Shelby
44 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
County, of which Memphis is the governmental seat, the candidates
whom the Klan backed did not even carry the rural districts, which
had almost been conceded to them, and they failed to make inroads
on the control of the county court.
Eastward, in the Carolinas, the Klan was able to make little headway
in local political affairs. However, in North Carolina there was a
mayor or two who was something more than friendly to the order and
its members. When in the fall of 1924 the chapter in Ahoskie, a very
small town in the coastal region, planned to stage a public demonstra-
tion, Mayor L. C. Williams "promptly" gave his assent to a parade and
other exercises chosen for the occasion. 6 In Goldsboro, Mayor Edgai
H. Bain once spoke of the order in terms as glowing as those a Kleagle
might have used in recruiting members. The Mayor's remarks were
the result of a report that the local Klan in Goldsboro was considering
giving two wealthy Negroes of the city who had left for New York in
Pullman berths an unwelcome reception upon their return for having
dared to ride in such a conveyance. Dubbing the story "just a rumor
circulated and accepted by outside newspapers," Mayor Bain went
on to say that the secret fraternity stood "for fairness to all and above
all things upholding of the law."
Available records pertaining to the local Klan in Raleigh, the capital
and one of the largest cities of the Tar Heel State, point to the chapter's
having on its membership list civil authorities, and attempting to put
into office men friendly to its philosophy. During the hearings of a
dramatic legal case of September, 1924, having to do with embezzle-
ment from one of the city's most prominent stores, City Detective
Joe Wiggins was forced to admit that he was a member of the In-
visible Empire. About this time the local Klan in Raleigh was con-
ducting a campaign to "clean up" the city. One of Raleigh's leading
anti-Klansmen, the distinguished ex-Secretary of the Navy Josephus
Daniels, away on vacation, was kept informed of the chapter's activi-
ties by his son Jonathan. The young Daniels wrote his father that in
order to gain its objectives, "the Klan demanded the resignation of
[Chief of Police A. E.] Glenn and dictated the selection of J. Winder
Bryan. They are now planning to demonstrate beyond a shadow of
a doubt that the change is a fine one and that it has long been needed.""
That Glenn was replaced by Bryan in 1924 can be proved; that the
local Klan of Raleigh was responsible for the turnover cannot be.
In South Carolina the Klan was close to impotence. This is inter-
esting, for of all the states of the Old South, South Carolina was the
most southern politically, the state of nullification and secession. | In a
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 45
two day investigation of the commonwealth made in late 1923 by a
New York Times correspondent, few of the score of well-informed
South Carolinians with whom newspaperman talked placed the order's
strength at more than 10,000. In two-thirds of the counties there
seemed to be no Klansmen and in the other one-third the number
was insignificant compared with the total population.
The only important instance in which the issue of the Klan in South
Carolina local politics had been raised was in the 1923 Charleston
municipal election. John P. Grace, running for re-election as mayor,
charged toward the end of his campaign that the secret order was
behind the effort to unseat him. This was accepted by competent
political observers to be a last minute effort on the part of the incum-
bent to rally the Catholics and Jews of the city to his support. Grace
was badly defeated and the voters who retired him to private life
included some of the most distinguished citizens of Charleston of the
Catholic and Jewish faiths. Here is one of the very best examples of
a politician using the Klan issue as a "red herring." In this instance
the anti-Klan charge fell short of substantiation and the candidate
failed to gather enough votes.
' Although the Klan reached the height of its power in the area to the
west of the lower Mississippi River and in the Middle West, the order
remained throughout the 1920's a political force in its home state,
Georgia. The Empire State of the South was fairly dotted with chap-
ters, all of which attempted to gain the friendship and co-operation
of the municipal and county politicos, and many of which were suc-
cessful in this endeavor. On June 18, 1921, there was a public meeting
in Rockmart, a sleepy little city in northwestern Georgia, with the
principal speaker of the evening being Colonel J. Q. Nolan of Atlanta,
who talked on the aims and operation of the Klan. What is noteworthy
about the meeting is that seated on the platform with Nolan were J. A.
Fambro, the mayor of Rockmart, members of the City Council, and two
Knights of the Realm of Georgia.
In the July, 1926, issue of The Forum there appeared a captivating
account of the efforts of Julian Harris, son of the beloved author, Joel
Chandler Harris, and owner and publisher of the Columbus Enquirer-
Sun, to defy the local Klan in Columbus. The Forum article related
that when Harris purchased the newspaper in 1921, there were in the
city on the Chattahoochee about 500 Klansmen, and the order was
actually endorsed by the mayor and the chief of police, and permitted
the use of the armory above police headquarters for its meeting place.
If Georgia was the home state of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
46 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Atlanta was the home city. A widely-circulated southern Negro week-
ly, the Norfolk Journal and Guide, reported in the fall of 1921 that
it was rumored that all members of the city government were members
of the Invisible Empire. To such a charge Imperial Wizard Simmons
had this to say during the Congressional investigation of the Ku Klux
Klan in 1921: In Atlanta "after searching investigation by the . . .
papers, it was found that only three officials in the county belonged
to the klan, and a small number of the council, although many of those
interviewed said they would like to belong to the klan, as they knew
many citizens of Atlanta of the highest type who were members." 7
One official who belonged to the secret fraternity was John A. Boy-
kin, Solicitor-General of the Atlanta Judicial Circuit. In a letter to
Simmons written on October 10, 1919, congratulating him on the
showing made by the Klan in a parade in Atlanta that day, Boykin
concluded, "Though it is seldom my privilege to attend the Klan meet-
ings, because of the most pressing and grueling duties, when crime is
rampant and there is unrest throughout the world, I want you and my
brother Klansmen to know that I am with you in spirit." 8 Although
Boykin never admitted that he was a Knight, the internal evidence of
this communication ( in the complete letter the Solicitor-General refers
to his "brother Klansmen" three times) leads one to the conclusive
inference that he was a member. The New York World once, by the
way, noted that in Atlanta Boykin's membership in the Invisible Empire
was taken for granted, and certain facts surrounding his election to his
office were taken as evidence of the political power of the Klan in the
capital of Georgia.
In the Democratic primary in Atlanta in 1922 the Klan became a
serious issue. Chief of Police Beavers, seeking the nomination for
mayor, issued a challenge to all his opponents, but particularly to
Councilman Walter Sims, alleged to be a candidate put forward by
the local Klan, 9 to state their positions on the fraternal organization.
Beavers promised that if he were elected mayor he would use every
lawful means in his power "to fight any improper influence the Klan
may seek to exert in politics, or any hand it may seek to take in the
affairs of this city. ..." Sims won the nomination as the Democratic
candidate for the chief municipal post of Atlanta, defeating not only
Beavers but James G. Woodward, three times mayor of the city. The
opposition to Sims by leaders of the Catholic Church and of the reform
elements of Atlanta who were against the councilman because of his
public acts of religious intolerance failed to triumph over the backing
of the Klan that he received.
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 47
In the 1924 campaign for the judgeship of the Superior Court of
Fulton County, of which Atlanta is the county seat, candidate L. F.
McClelland charged that his opponent, Judge Gus H. Howard, had
made the Klan, of which Howard was an acknowledged member, an
issue in the race. Declaring that he himself was not nor ever had
been a Knight, McClelland felt sure that numbers of men, "100 per
cent Americans," who had joined the Klan as a fraternity would now
agree with him that the order's "recent active entry into the political
arena removes it from the realms of fraternal organization to that of a
political party." Howard won the election.
Considering the fact that during the 1920's the Klan in Alabama
drew nationwide attention as a participant in state politics, it is inter-
esting that there were remarkably few newspaper accounts of the
activity of the order on the local level in the Gulf state. Efforts of a
political nature were indeed expended on this level; the newspapermen
were perhaps so engrossed in writing up an account of the Klan in
state politics that they did not have sufficient time to delve into activi-
ty on the local scene, a story considered to be less newsworthy. Be
that as it may, there is one newspaper article in particular, a treatment
of the 1927 mayoralty election in Montgomery, that should be turned
to. In this contest in the capital of Alabama, William A. Gunter, the
incumbent, was elected to the post over J. Johnson Moore, a candi-
date nominated through Klan influence. During the last days of the
race, James Esdale, Grand Dragon of the Realm of Alabama, traveled
to Montgomery from Birmingham, where he practiced law, to aid the
Klan-supported office seeker. At political meetings held throughout
the city by both factions numerous charges and counter-charges were
indulged in. At the conclusion of his campaign, Gunter asked the
citizens of Montgomery point-blank whether it was their wish to be
governed by "the invisible empire or by a government of, for and by
the people." The vote was more than two to one in Gunter's favor.
In Florida practically all Klan activity in local politics was channeled
into preventing the Negroes from exercising the franchise. In a host
of towns and cities in that state chapters of the order regularly staged
just before elections extensively advertised parades, the object of which
was to intimidate the colored population into staying away from the
polls. In Jacksonville, on the night of October 30, 1920, for example,
one such public spectacle took place; about 500 hooded and robed
Knights silently marched through the streets, despite urgent requests
from national Negro organizations to the local police department and
city officials that the parade be prohibited.
48 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Pertinent to the story of the Klan in Florida attempting to prevent
the Negroes from participating in elections is an incident that occurred
in Ocoee, a hamlet in Orange County. Three weeks prior to the
November, 1920, elections, the local Klan sent word to the Negroes
of Orange County that they would not be allowed to vote, and that if
any member of the colored community attempted to cast a ballot,
trouble would certainly ensue. Mose Norman, of Ocoee, refusing to
be deterred by such threats, went to the polls, where he was overpow-
ered, severely beaten, and ordered to go home. This episode incited
a white mob to storm through the colored section of Ocoee, where it
participated in an orgy of incendiarism, resulting in the loss of twenty
houses, two churches, a school building, a lodge-hall, and dozens of
Negro lives.
Three years later, in Miami, a few days before the municipal election
of April, 1923, a broadside was distributed in the Negro section of that
city. It read as follows:
"Beware!
Negro Citizens, as long as you keep
your place, we will protect you,
But
Beware! The Ku-Klux-Klan
is Again Alive!
and every negro who approaches
a polling place next Tuesday
will be
A MARKED MAN
This is a white man's country, boys,
so save your own life next Tuesday
Ku-Klux-Klan,
Miami Chapter
P. S. Don't think for a minute that
we don't know you. A white man
will be at every polling place with
his book, don't get in that book."
What must not be overlooked is that this handbill could just as
easily have been distributed by individuals not belonging to the Klan,
who took advantage of the threat which the secret fraternity afforded
to intimidate Negroes into staying away from the polls.
In Mississippi the Klan was negligible as a factor in local politics.
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 49
However, throughout the 1920's Knights in Mississippi were full of
hope that someday individual chapters in the state would employ
political activity to carry out the order's program as successfully as
they made use of Klannishness, charitable enterprises, and terrorism.
A typical expression of this aspiration of the local Klans of Mississippi
was penned by the Exalted Cyclops of Vicksburg in the May 13, 1921,
issue of the Weekly News Letter: "The reason why everybody here
has taken so keenly to the Klan is due to the fact that years ago the
Jews and Roman Catholics formed a liaison with the liquor interests
and have had politics in this city throttled, and it is our intention to
whip and rout them at the polls when the next election comes around
in 1922. We intend to put these un-American elements out of office
precisely as other communities have done."
I Across the Mississippi River in Arkansas the record of the Invisible
Empire's participation in local politics was a long and full one. (Elec-
tion clashes between Klan and anti-Klan factions were bitter, there
being no better example than the Little Rock municipal election of
November, 1924. During this political race a report was current
throughout the city that the local Klan had sent out "instructions" to
its members that they support County Judge Charles E. Moyer for
mayor. R. A. Cook, Exalted Cyclops of the Klan in Little Rock, em-
phatically denied any such action on the part of his organization, al-
though he refused to discuss whether the local Klan as a body had
endorsed Judge Moyer. In less than two weeks Cook was to make
a statement vastly more interesting than this one. He declared that
Mayor Benjamin Dunton Brickhouse, seeking re-election, displayed
"rank ingratitude" in the attacks he made upon his opponent Moyer,
J. A. Comer, ex-Exalted Cyclops of the Klan in Little Rock and now
Grand Dragon of the Realm of Arkansas, and the Invisible Empire as
a whole. In the past, Cook explained, Brickhouse had "sought and
accepted the friendship of the local Klan and Exalted Cyclops Comer,"
but in this, his race for a fourth term, "he failed to obtain the backing
of the Klan so he is very angry about it."
Weeks before the Little Rock municipal election Cook, speaking for
his chapter, charged that during the Democratic primary of August,
1924, fraud was practiced in counting the votes cast in various precincts
of Pulaski County, the governmental unit in which Little Rock is
located. At a meeting of the local Klan, held on August 21, these
details were presented: Klansmen who were members of the canvass-
ing committee named to check the ballots cast in the primary dis-
covered errors in the counting of the votes that were apparently
50 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
deliberately made. Inasmuch as many of the errors adversely af-
fected Klansmen who were candidates, especially for membership
on the Democratic County Central Committee, the fraud must have
been aimed at the secret order.
On August 26, the Pulaski County Democratic convention answered
the charge of fraud. The meeting, packed with anti-Klan delegates
who listened attentively to many verbal lashings of the secret frater-
nity, was the first at which a direct attack was ever made by the
Democratic party in the county against the Klan. Scathing denuncia-
tions of the order were made by the chairman of the convention, Fred
A. Isgrig, and the secretary of the County Central Committee, Frank
H. Dodge. 10 These were both received with applause. Isgrig traced
the history of the Little Rock Klan in politics, describing the fight it
had made to obtain control of the school board, the county offices,
and the membership of the state legislature alloted to the district.
Dodge declared that no fraud was practiced in the primary, that the
mistakes made in counting were unintentional errors resulting from
the use of the long ballot. He pointed out further that the election
judges and clerks were chosen with the assistance of Klansmen, in-
cluding C. P. Newton, the Democratic candidate for county judge.
Before adjourning, the convention adopted a resolution, the con-
clusion of which stated: "Be it ... resolved that we call upon the
citizens not only of this county but upon all the counties of the
state of Arkansas, to join with us in casting the Ku Klux Klan out of
the Democratic party and forcing it to come out in the open, under
its own colors as a Ku Klux Klan party, instead of seeking to hide
its identity within the folds of the Democratic party."
On September 6th the Pulaski County Democratic Central Committee
met to select its officers for the coming two years. On the Central
Committee were both Klan and anti-Klan factions striving to capture
the chairmanship and secretaryship. "With the anti-Klan membership
at about 190 and the Klan membership at approximately 75, it is not
surprising that the personnel and philosophy of the newly-elected Cen-
tral Committee was quite hostile to the secret fraternity's participation
in the local politics of Pulaski County.
About this time, in the eastern part of the state, another battle was
being waged by Klan and anti-Klan forces within the Democratic
party. When the St. Francis County Democratic Central Committee
convened on August 15 to canvass the returns of the recently held
primary, notice of protest was filed by three of the defeated candidates.
The petitioners were all backed by the local Klan and each alleged
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 51
irregularities in counting; they were J. G. Sanders, W. J. Lanier, and
C. R. Hine, candidates for sheriff, county judge, and county treasurer,
respectively. The contested cases came to an end on October 11, when
Circuit Judge John W. Wade decided against the petitioners after a
trial lasting nine days and including the examination of several hundred
witnesses. Each of the three Klan-supported candidates, as a matter of
fact, finished the hearings with a much smaller vote than he had when
he had started.
During the trial of the three petitioners some highly interesting de-
tails of Klan politicking in St. Francis County were brought to light.
It was proved, for example, that the local chapter of the order had
held its own elimination contests for Klan-endorsed nominees for the
various offices in the Democratic primary, with all the contestants
having been required to sign a pledge to support in the primary those
of their number who won the elimination contests. It was shown,
too, that the local Klan had undertaken the payment of poll taxes of
individuals known to be in favor of the same candidates it backed.
The Klan, however, scored at least one political victory in Arkansas
in 1924. In the Democratic primary of August for nomination for
Congress from the Third District, J. N. Tillman decisively defeated
E. G. Mitchell, who ran on an anti-Klan platform. Of the nine counties
in the Third District, the only one Mitchell carried was Searcy, where
for some time there had been a strong anti-Klan movement.
I In Louisiana the Invisible Empire seems to have expended so much
energy in endeavoring to regulate the morals of the inhabitants of the
commonwealth that it had too little left to attempt to dominate munici-
pal and county governments. Nevertheless, two examples of Klan
activity in local politics in widely separated parts of the state should
be noted, for they are as interesting as they are instructive. The local
chapter in New Orleans, a predominantly Catholic city exceedingly
hostile to the Klan, found it expedient in September, 1921, to close
temporarily its office after Mayor Andrew J. McShane and Commis-
sioner Stanley Raye condemned the order as un-American. In Decem-
ber of the following year, in Haynesville, an oil town far to the north,
the mayor and each member of the police force received a letter bearing
the stamp of Klan No. 63 of Louisiana ordering them to resign. The
charge: shielding bootleggers and lawbreakers.
■ Like so much else having to do with Texas, there is only one word to
describe the political power of the Klan on the local level during the
192Q's — that word is "big". To begin with, in Beaumont, in the
southeast, not far from the Louisiana border, the local Klan announced
..""'^"r Of
52 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
in the spring of 1922 that it would thereafter function as a political
machine. The chapter published a statement proclaiming its intention
to place in office Knights or sympathizers with the order. Quite soon
after this was done a Citizens' League was formed to thwart the
chapter's declared ambitions. From that point on there occurred
rivalry between Klan and anti-Klan forces such as a city had seldom
seen.
Judge W. H. Davidson of the Fifty-eighth District Court swore that
he was escorted to the Klan meeting place in Beaumont by Deputy
Sheriff George Wallace, where Sheriff Thomas Heslip Garner was
waiting to tell him that "everybody wanted him in" and that "at the
next meeting night he would be made a member." The judge, by the
way, was quick to add that he refused to consider membership in the
organization. Another jurist had a much less pleasant experience with
the local Klan; that is, if it was the order that was at fault. Anti-Klan
City Judge J. A. Pelt was tarred and feathered in April, 1922, by a hood-
ed band of men. The Citizens' League charged the secret fraternity
with committing the act. The city commissioners offered $1,000 for
the arrest and conviction of any member of the mob responsible for
the outrage, and Mayor B. A. Steinhagen made known his desire to
"get those cowards who hid behind masks, whether or not they belong
to the Ku Klux Klan."
Steinhagen said a good many other things to provoke the Knights of
Beaumont. For example, he issued a statement declaring that while the
City Commission did not presume to dictate to those in its employ
regarding their affiliations with any organization, he himself felt that
the membership of a municipal employee in the Klan was inimical to
the public good. In 1924 the order was able to congratulate itself on
vanquishing this great political enemy, Steinhagen. In the munici-
pal election of April 1, the mayor was defeated for re-election by J. A.
Barnes, a young attorney. Barnes, while not belonging to the local
Klan, had its full endorsement in the campaign.
If the political power of the Klan on the local level in the Lone
Star State was big, so too was the consequent fight put up by the oppo-
nents of the Invisible Empire. Reference to four separate communities
should suffice to illustrate the point. When, in September, 1921,
Mayor Stanton Allen heard that the local Klan intended to parade
in his town of Bartlett, which lies about ten miles north of Austin, he
hurriedly issued a proclamation forbidding it and ordered the city
marshall to arrest any hooded and robed individuals who appeared on
the streets. The chapter made no effort to carry out its announced
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS S3
purpose of marching. On March 16, 1922, District Judge John F.
Mullaly in his charge to the grand jury at Laredo ordered a complete
investigation of the Klan in that city. He instructed the members of
the jury to summon every city, county, and federal officer in the area
and question him as to membership in the fraternity, which he criti-
cized as "an unlawful organization gotten up for purpose of violating
the laws of the state." On the very same day, in Austin, Judge James
R. Hamilton in Criminal Court found Police Commissioner J. D.
Copeland in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions re-
lating to the Klan and to his alleged membership in it — questions put
to him previously by the Travis County grand jury. The court im-
posed a fine of $50, and ordered Copeland to jail, where he was to re-
main until he answered the questions. Asserting its belief that the
Klan should disband in the "public interest," the Travis County
grand jury on April 14, 1922, filed with Judge Robinson in Criminal
District Court at Houston a report declaring that it had initiated a
thorough investigation of the order.
Regarding the establishment of the Klan in Dallas in the early
1920's, John William Rogers, in his history of the city, writes that "It
was plain that in local politics . . . the hooded organization was mak-
ing itself felt." Such a remark becomes an understatement when com-
pared with any number of others on the political power of the Klan in
the city of Dallas and surrounding Dallas County during this period:
"There the word of the Klan officials is law." "They [Klan leaders]
take in all the policemen, every city or county official ..." "It is
claimed that every officer of the city and county of Dallas is a Klans-
man ..." "For the next two years [1922-19241 we lived in a com-
munity where every city and county office was held by a member of
the Klan or by a man who had made peace with it."
Probably the most serious threat to the political activity of the
Klan in the Dallas area was the Dallas County Citizens' League,
formed on April 15, 1922. This organization adopted resolutions de-
ploring the existence of a secret order that engaged in terrorism.
It also demanded that both holders and seekers of public office de-
nounce the Klan. To all candidates for office in Dallas County and to
some candidates for the federal Congress an extensive questionnaire
was sent by the Citizens' League, the first three queries of which
were: "(1) Are you now a member of the organization known as the
Ku Klux Klan?; (2) Is it your purpose or intention to affiliate here-
after in any way with the Ku Klux Klan?; (3) Are you in sympathy
with the purposes, practices, and objectives of the Ku Klux Klan?"
54 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Naturally, some of the most interesting aspects of the political activity
of the Klan in the city of Dallas could be witnessed only at election
time. For a more balanced view of the part played by the Klan during
elections held in Dallas, as indeed in the entire state, it would be well
first to take note of a remark in 1924 by the Grand Dragon of the Realm
of Texas, Z. E. ("Zeke") Marvin: "During the term for which I accept-
ed the responsibility of the chief officer of the Klan in Texas it has been
my earnest desire to keep the Klan out of politics, but in each campaign
a candidate has thrown battle against the Klan forcing the Klan to
defend its principles there in support of a candidate who had not at-
tacked the principles of the Klan ..." Following are two examples of
local Klan politicking in the city of Dallas during the 1922 Dallas
County election. At the height of the campaign Judge Barry Miller,
an outspoken critic of the secret order, was visited in his law office by
three Knights ( none was a resident of Dallas so as not to be recognized
by the jurist), the spokesman of whom said, "Judge Miller, your
record in Texas is well known and admired. You have many friends in
the Klan who would not want to see you hurt. But we are here to
warn you that you've got to stop attacking the Klan. You mustn't make
another speech against it." At the tail end of the campaign, on
August 25, the local Klan sponsored an election eve rally at the city
hall auditorium. The meeting place was soon filled, and the overflow,
consisting of 2,000 people, went into the street where it gathered
around a truck drawn up in front of the broad steps of the building
to form a speaker's stand. More than a half dozen Klansmen or Klan
sympathizers in the two meetings orated in behalf of a host of candi-
dates for county office, practically all of whom, including Shelby Cox,
who ran for district attorney, were to be victorious at the polls.
On April 6, 1922, Mayor S. R. Aldredge of Dallas issued a statement
in which he asked all city employees who were members of the secret
order to resign from it immediately, and requested the local chapter to
disband. An organization which brought discord to a peaceful city, as
the Klan had done, should not be permitted to exist, the mayor argued.
The following year, in the municipal election of April 3, the local Klan
took full revenge on Aldredge for his hostility. The mayor with the
rest of his ticket was defeated for re-election by an almost three-to-one
vote. Aldredge's opponent, who spoke neither for nor against the fra-
ternity, had received the heartiest endorsement of the local chapter.
Beginning with the election of 1924, it should be noted, the anti-Klan
forces in the city of Dallas and in Dallas County began capturing
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 55
several offices, and the political strength of the order in that area was
on the way to being broken.
For a time the local Klan in Houston exerted almost as much in-
fluence in municipal affairs as did the one in Dallas. In the summer of
1921 a newly recruited Kleagle was told by his immediate superior, the
King Kleagle, that the Houston chapter of the order had engaged in
some terroristic activity, but felt quite secure from interference by the
law because it "ran things its own way, as it had the mayor, the
police force and practically all of the politicians." Houston's Demo-
cratic primary for 1923 supports the Kleagle's assertion. In the
contest for the mayoralty nomination were Judge Murray B.
Jones and Oscar F. Holcombe, who was seeking re-election. The
former admittedly had support from the local Klan; the latter was
understood to be a member of the order. In this campaign Klansmen
must certainly have breathed easily, for the success of either candidate
would prove politically advantageous to their chapter. Also, it should
not be forgotten that during this period victory in a Democratic pri-
mary in Houston, as in the rest of the "Solid South," was tantamount to
victory in the general election to follow. It was Holcombe who won
the nomination.
The experiences of three men who sought to hold the office of
sheriff in different parts of Texas during the 1920's interestingly illus-
trate the efforts made by the secret order to place and keep in con-
stabular posts Klansmen and Klan sympathizers. When the sheriff
of Collin County, in the northeastern part of the state, was asked in the
early 1920's to join the local Klan, he replied that he had better not do
so lest his oath as a Knight conflict with his oath of office. He was then
informed that if that was all that bothered him, he need not be further
concerned, since if the chapter decided upon any illegal action his
fellow Klansmen would make every effort to safeguard his conscience
by executing it without his knowledge. Soon after his election in 1920
as Sheriff of Young County, not far from Collin County, John Sayce
posted a notice inviting the Klan to co-operate with him in enforcing
the law, but stressing that he would always be cognizant of his position
as the duly constituted supreme police authority. Mob violence,
whether committed by Klansmen or anyone else, it was added, would
not be tolerated. The local chapter of the order reacted negatively to
this; it was instrumental two years later in Sayce's defeat for re-election
by a four-to-one vote. In the 1922 Democratic primary in Travis
County, of which Austin is the governmental seat, Charles Hamly made
a bid for the nomination for sheriff on a vigorous anti-Klan platform.
56 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
It was his contention that a sheriff, by the very nature of his position,
must oppose the secret order, since it sought to take the law into its
own hands. Hamly's chief opponent for the nomination rejected
completely the viewpoint that a police official must be opposed to the
Klan. This individual was none other than the incumbent, W. D.
Miller, who months before had admitted to a grand jury that he was a
member of the Invisible Empire.
Not long after the Klan had taken root in the Lone Star State, the
Representative from the Fifteenth Congressional District in Texas
denounced it as an organization that was totally foreign to the Ameri-
can way of life. The Invisible Empire consequently made known its
intention to defeat for re-election in 1922 this antagonistic legisla-
tor. Members of the local chapter of the order in their regalia
gathered around his home and burned a cross; they sent him threaten-
ing letters. When the political campaign was over, the Representative
found that he had been defeated in counties he had never before
lost, including his own. Nevertheless, he was re-elected to the lower
House. That individual was John Nance Garner, later to be
Speaker of the House of Representatives and Vice-President of the
United States.
A few generalizations on the relationship between politicians and the
southern wing of the Klan can be set forth with good advantage.
Politicians in a section of the nation where public opinion was not
solidly anti-Klan faced the dilemma of deciding what stand to take
on the secret order. ; Their position has been likened to that of one
accosted on a dark street by a masked individual who said he had a
gun and would shoot straight for the heart if his orders were not com-
plied with. Few would attempt to find out whether there really was
a gun, and fewer still, whether it was loaded.
In its reliance upon the threat of reprisal against recalcitrant politi-
cians, a threat too perilous to be ignored but too vague to be appraised
or offset, lay the secret of the political power of the Klan. The fear
engendered by the order's threat naturally varied from one part of
the nation to another. In many localities — New England, New York,
the north central states, the mountain states, for example — politicians
naturally felt immune to the vengeance of the Invisible Empire. In
other sections of the country, however, politicians found that they
could ill afford to "withstand an incalculable impact, of indefinite forces,
from an invisible source, and at an unexpected time." Such a section
was, of course, the South.
Throughout the South chapters of the secret fraternity affixed a stamp
LOCAL CHAPTER ANTICS 57
of approval to candidates for office, often when it was unsolicited and
sometimes when it was actually refused, usually by those who believed
that they had over the years made their political position secure enough.
The Klan delighted in picking a winner. However, if a chapter chanced
to support a defeated candidate, it made sure to broadcast an alibi, for
whatever the outcome of an election, the Klan considered it imperative
that others be convinced that its influence had been preponderant.fi
The individual who in his successful quest for political office had
sought and received the support of the Invisible Empire frequently
found himself regretting the liaison. After the Klan helped elect the
candidate to a position of public trust, it could remind him of his in-
debtedness ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Worse than that, it might inform
the politico that if he did not comply with its wishes, whether poli-
tical or otherwise, it would tell the public (in such a manner as to leave
the impression that the information came from another source) of their
relationship. Realizing the imminence of political death if he did not
"play ball" with the secret order, the officeholder more often than not
succumbed.
After having had a decade in which to gain an historical perspective
of the southern wing of the Klan in politics, E. E. Callaway, in the
February, 1938, issue of The American Mercury, saw a salutary aspect
of the politicians' consorting with the secret fraternity, even if it
meant their becoming members. The contributor to this influential
magazine held that there was no question but that thousands of the
ablest politicians of the South, sympathetic with neither the philosophy
nor the methods of the Invisible Empire, associated themselves with
local Klans for purely political reasons. That was possibly the best
thing that could have happened at the time, according to Callaway,
for if these men, in the final analysis neither weaklings nor demagogues,
had not come to terms with the secret order, they would have been
defeated, and the very worst element would have been elected. Thus
the result would have been the thorough domination of southern politics
by others, men who would have encouraged both racial and religious
intolerance, rather than restraining them. Callaway's proposition
does, at the least, contain an element of truth — and the thought is
comforting.
Chapter V
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES
An alert traveller making an extended tour of the South in the mid-
1920's would probably have perceived as he made his way from the
Upper South to the Deep South that the Klan was an increasingly im-
portant factor in the field of. state politics. If this observant traveller
had in fact become aware of that, then surely he would have noticed
something more striking — the existence of three "pockets" of especial
Klan strength in Georgia, Alabama, and Texas. Each of these "pockets"
is discussed in this chapter.
In the early 1920's Klan officials were wont to brag about the link
between the Invisible Empire and the legislative branch of the federal
government. In a letter to an anti-Klan Southerner, dated January 1,
1920, Imperial Wizard Simmons declared that "among the Klan's
most appreciated and loyal members now are members of Congress."
Mrs. Tyler, while on a shopping spree in New York City in the fall of
1921, took time off to tell a newspaper reporter that although she was
not at liberty to disclose any names, it was quite true that many officials
of the United States government were Knights. Two years later in
the Klan magazine, The Dawn, there appeared the following:
"Many Congressmen who went to their home unfavorable to the
Ku Klux Klan will return to Congress as members of the great Ameri-
can organization . . .
"Engrossed as they were with legislation and other official duties
some of the leaders are said to have accepted unfavorable newspaper
stories as true accounts of the Klan's activities and the background of
its principles.
"The return home has enabled them to learn first hand of the real
regard in which the Klan is held by true Americans. Members of the
organization have presented its claims of merit successfully so that
there is no question but what the already large Klan representation
will be materially increased."
'More extreme than all this was the assertion, frequently made by
Imperial Kleagle Clarke, that the Klan would one day soon be in actual
control of the United States Congress. 1
With the boasts of these Klan leaders in mind, the student of the
58
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 59
secret order would do well to pause over the actions of two Georgians
who served in the Congress during the early 1920's. When "Colonel"
Simmons made his first appearance before the House Rules Committee
conducting an investigation of the Klan in 1921, William D. Upshaw,
Democratic Representative of the Fifth District of Georgia, 2 in spite of
the remarks of the chairman of the committee that Simmons needed
no introduction, delivered a bombastic address of presentation, full
of phrases such as "his sterling character," "his every utterance as the
truth of an honest, patriotic man," "a sturdy and inspiring personality,"
"incapable of an unworthy unpatriotic motive, word or deed," and "my
long-time, personal friend." 3
Upshaw's friendship for, and championing of, the Invisible Empire
was of long standing. He declared that he always felt "a sort of
wounded pride" in hearing criticisms hurled at the organization. On
the stationery of the House of Representatives he once penned an un-
dated note to Mrs. Tyler stating, "... I hope you, the Wizard and the
Near Wizard will like it [an article to be published in the Klan
newspaper, Searchlight, it appears]. If I can serve you and the
Searchlight further please do not hesitate to command me." In the
official organs of the Klan no representative ever got more coverage
than Upshaw. Every piece of legislation he introduced, speech he
delivered, article he wrote, public appearance he made seems to
have been reported in the newspapers and magazines of the secret
order.
But was Upshaw a Knight? Many contemporary observers of the
fraternity thought so. One journalist, for example, included the Geor-
gian in a group of "Kluxers in good standing"; another referred to him
as "a Klansman who had been elected by Klan votes." Charges of
membership in the Invisible Empire were never substantiated. This
much, however, can certainly be said of Upshaw: if he was never a
Klansman in fact, he was always a Klansman in spirit.
On the third day of the Congressional investigation of the Klan,
Senator Thomas E. Watson of Georgia suddenly strode into the
hearings room. All eyes turned upon this Democratic legislator widely
known for his onetime leadership in the Populist party and his recent
participation in the anti-Catholic crusade. Watson edged his way
through the crowd, went up to "Colonel" Simmons, who was preparing
to testify, seized him by the hand, whispered into his ear, and then
turned around and sat down. A moment later he jumped to his feet,
demanding the right to question the witness in the interest of "fair
play." As he put a question to the Imperial Wizard, the Senator an-
60 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
nounced his firm resolve to protect the Klan from "any unjust attacks
from anybody." 4 This was not the first time that Watson battled for the
Invisible Empire. A month before he had publicly defended the order
and denounced those attacking it.
In view of conduct such as this, it is no wonder that the Georgia
Senator was charged with being a Knight. What reply did Watson
make to the allegation? When he questioned Simmons during the
course of the hearings on Klan activities held before the House Com-
mittee on Rules, he stated unequivocally that he was not a member of
the secret order. On another occasion, however, when asked by one
of his colleagues in the Upper House about his affiliation with the Klan,
he boasted that he was called "the King of the Ku Klux in Georgia." 8
In 1920 Thomas W. Hardwick, a former United States Senator, was
elected governor of Georgia. During his two-year term of office, he
demanded that the order discard the use of the hood, open its member-
ship fists to the public and cease its terroristic activity. Naturally, he
incurred the full wrath of the Klan.
When Hardwick sought re-election in 1922, the secret order was able
to avenge itself. During the course of the campaign for the Democratic
nomination for the governorship, issues of the Klan newspaper, Search-
light, full of anti-Hardwick articles, were distributed throughout the
length and breadth of Georgia. Twenty trained and skilled speakers,
under the direction of Imperial Klokard William James Mahoney,
delivered addresses all over the state denouncing Hardwick. Imperial
Kludd Caleb Ridley gave lectures against him. | In the Democratic
primary in July, the solid vote of the Klan went against the incumbent
and for Clifford Walker, former Attorney-General of the state. The
latter received the nomination and went on to victory in the fall over
his Republican opponent.
Two years later, in the 1924 campaign for the Democratic nomina-
tion for the United States senatorship one issue took precedence over
all others — that of the Klan. As a candidate for the nomination, former
Governor Hardwick alleged early in July that a delegation from the
Klan of the Realm of Georgia had called on Chief Justice Richard B.
Russell of the State Supreme Court regarding the senatorial race.
According to Hardwick, the deputation of Knights informed the Chief
Justice that their order was determined that United States Senator
William J. Harris should be re-elected, that it was willing to spend
$500,000 to realize that end, and that it would be intensely displeased
if Russell, able politician and proven vote-getter that he was, entered
the Democratic senatorial primary.
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 61
Hardwick was not through making charges. In August he began to
deliver speeches accusing Harris of being a member of the Klan. The
latter ignored the allegation. But not for long. In early September
Hardwick, in the course of an address, read a letter from Mrs. Elizabeth
Tyler to the Exalted Cyclops of the local Klan in Cedartown, Polk
County, dated March 16, 1922. In this letter Mrs. Tyler used the
phrase "Hon. W. J. Harris, A. K. I. A." As every Knight in Georgia
knew, and as the rest of the inhabitants of the state were to find out
from Hardwick, "A. K. I. A." stood for "a Klansman I am." Confronted
with such documentary evidence, Harris found it necessary to reply.
He issued a statement in which he first declared that he was not nor
ever had been a member of the Invisible Empire, and then expressed
disgust that Hardwick should "stoop so low" as to read in the closing
hours of the campaign an "alleged letter upon which he deliberately
places a false interpretation."
Harris, receiving the Klan vote, won the nomination by one of the
greatest majorities ever given a candidate in Georgia. With all but
a half dozen of the 159 counties of the state going for him, the Demo-
cratic primary was indeed a landslide for the Senator.
At the close of 1922, with the failure of Hardwick to be re-elected
Governor, the Klan of the Realm of Georgia had taken a new lease on
life. Hardwick's pronouncements against the order's use of the hood,
its keeping membership lists secret, and its practice of terrorism were
now only to be laughed at by self-satisfied Knights. Clifford Walker
was Chief Executive — and Clifford Walker was a friend of the
Invisible Empire. From the time Walker acceded to the gover-
norship, the secret order was given free rein in the Empire State of the
South.
One of the candidates in the 1924 race for the judgeship of the Supe-
rior Court of Fulton County was Klansman Gus H. Howard. Having
been appointed by Governor Walker to fill out an unexpired term,
Howard was seeking to maintain the post at the hands of the voters.
During the course of the campaign Walker ordered to be distributed to
the women voters of the county copies of a personal letter, appealing
to them to cast their ballots for Judge Howard. To no small portion of
the femininity of the state the Governor's action was abhorrent. Mrs.
Rebecca Latimer Felton of Cartersville, the first of her sex ever to sit
in the United States Senate, took it upon herself to lead a female attack
on Walker. She charged that it was the Klan that induced the Governor
to have copies of the letter sent out. "It is said he is a Klansman. I do
not know," Mrs. Felton declared caustically about Walker, "but it
62 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
happens he hangs up his Tiood and nightie' in the capitol of Georgia."
In a matter of a few weeks the Governor's relationship with the Klan
would be — if that was possible — even bigger news.
At the Second Imperial Klonvokation of the Klan, held in Kansas City,
Missouri, in September, 1924, an individual identified only as "the
Governor of a great State" delivered a speech entitled "Americanism
Applied." In the address the speaker bewailed, among other things,
the admission into the United States of "the lower type of foreigners"
and the "taking charge" of the 1924 Democratic national convention
by a "gang of Roman Catholic priests."
Upon seeing dispatches from the Klan convention referring to the
appearance of a governor during its proceedings, newspapermen were,
of course, instantly aware of a great story, which they diligently tracked
down to the executive mansion in Atlanta. It was found out that
after having announced that he was going to Philadelphia and Wash-
ington for a rest and vacation, Walker had traveled instead to Kan-
sas City, accompanied by State Commissioner of Agriculture J. J.
Brown and State Commissioner of Fish and Game Peter S. Twitty, both
of whom were alleged to be Knights in good standing. Finally, on
October 13, 1924, Walker informed the press that "the Governor of
a great State" who addressed the Second Imperial Klonvokation was
he! That was not all. Walker admitted that he had joined the Klan
years before. He carefully explained, however, that he had never
taken any part in its council, and did not even know whether his mem-
bership was still in force.
After the Georgia Democratic presidential primary of March, 1924,
in which former Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo beat
Senator Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama, much controversy arose
in the State Democratic Committee over the method of selecting dele-
gates to the state convention to be held in Atlanta on April 25. In dis-
regard of the custom of the Democratic party in that state, McAdoo's
Georgia managers demanded the right to appoint all delegates to
the convention, maintaining that McAdoo's victory in the primary en-
titled him to have only delegates that were supporters of him. Certain
state committeemen insisted on holding conventions in their respective
districts so that delegates could be elected by popular vote, a proce-
dure which was in keeping with the tradition of the Democratic party in
Georgia.
The latter point of view was distasteful to the Klan in Georgia, which
had given its full support to McAdoo in the primary. In order to help
McAdoo should the advocates of local autonomy in the choosing of
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 63
delegates be victorious, a proclamation was issued by Nathan Bedford
Forrest, Grand Dragon of the Realm of Georgia, to all the Exalted
Cyclopses under his jurisdiction. The document read as follows:
"You are hereby instructed to con the list of delegates named to the
State Democratic Convention from your county and ascertain the names
of Klansmen appearing thereon, and issue to them the following instruc-
tions: No district caucus will be held prior to the Convention. Such
caucus will take place at the Convention as provided in the program.
It is the earnest desire of Mr. McAdoo that his friends elect Major
John S. Cohen as National Committeeman. Major Cohen is a high
class Christian gentleman, a member of the North Avenue Presbyterian
Church of Atlanta, and in every sense is acceptable to us, and we are
assured that'if he goes to New York the Klan's interests will be ably
protected. Therefore before selecting a man for district delegate the
Klansman voting should assure himself as to the stand such delegate
will take with reference to Major Cohen and consequently the interest
of the Klan. You will impress upon the Klansmen delegates the ab-
solute necessity for their attendance at the state convention. Those
who for financial reasons will be unable to attend should have their
expenses paid by the local Klan. This is a time when everyone must
do his bit and the Klan expects that everyone will do his duty." 8
The outcome of the controversy over the method of selecting dele-
gates to the State Democratic convention was that they were appointed
by McAdoo's Georgia managers. At this convention, which had the
task of choosing delegates to the forthcoming national convention of
the Democratic party in New York City, the strength of the Klan was
in evidence. Cohen was elected National Committeeman, and large
numbers of individuals who were alleged to be Knights were included
in the Georgia delegation to the national convention. 7
A Although it was the home state of the Klan, Georgia had never
equaled certain other states in the number of Knights within its borders.
With Evans' removal of Simmons, Clarke, and Tyler from the order in
1923, Georgia's supremacy in the Invisible Empire began to decline.
Washington, D. C, came nearer to being the center of operations and
authority of the order than Atlanta, the official seat. As a matter of
fact, before the 1920's drew to a close the Klan actually transferred its
national headquarters from the capital of Georgia to the capital of
the United States. \
In 1926, the Klan of the Realm of Georgia suffered a severe blow.
In the Democratic primaries of that year every candidate who received
the backing of the secret order went down to defeat — for the com-
64 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
missionership of Agriculture, judgeship of the State Supreme Court,
United States senatorship, and governorship. In the first gubernatorial
primary J. O. Wood, an avowed Knight, finished last in the voting,
and in the "run-off" of October 6, the anti-Klan banker and physician,
L. G. Hardman of Commerce, far outdistanced his sole opponent, pro-
Klan John Holder, chairman of the State Highway Commission.
"Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans trembles in his capital. Georgia, the
seat and heart of his empire, has revolted," editorialized the New York
Times. Nevertheless, the order still exerted political influence in
the small cities of Georgia, was still sought after as an ally by various
candidates for state office, and remained powerful enough to play an
impressive part in the commonwealth during the national election of
1928, when the Democratic party's candidate for the presidency was a
Catholic, Alfred E. Smith.
During the 1920's the Klan in Alabama received widespread atten-
tion for its participation in state politics. When Senator Oscar W.
Underwood of Alabama made a bid for the Democratic presidential
nomination in 1924, he did so on a stand in favor of the adoption by the
national convention of an anti-Klan plank. As a matter of fact, the
Senator went so far as to prepare such a plank ( it was patterned after
the anti-Know-Nothing plank adopted by the Democratic national
convention of 1856) and have it read to the delegates assembled in
Madison Square Garden in New York. While seeking the nomina-
tion the Alabaman had fiercely assailed the Klan and its policies — once
in Houston, again in Boston, another time in Cleveland, and finally in
New York.
For hurling such defiance against it, the Invisible Empire proclaimed
that it would force Underwood out of politics. The Klan magazine,
The Dawn, declared that Alabama Klansmen "are going to romp on
Oscar Underwood so hard in the elections that he won't get to
first base." On the same point, an official newspaper of the Klan,
The Fiery Cross, reported, "They will take it out in hard swatting
when the time comes. The Alabama Senator will think he has struck
a Texas cyclone ..." At the Klonvokation of the Klan held in Kansas
City, Missouri, in September, 1924, the delegation from the Realm of
Alabama, after scoring Senator Underwood for his anti-Klan ut-
terances, vowed that it "would retire him in 1926." During an open
air meeting called by the local Klan in Birmingham, on October 15,
1924, to initiate individuals into the order, 7,000 Knights cheered wildly
while a coffin containing the body of Underwood in effigy was 'laid to
rest " through a trap door on the speaker's platform.
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 65
Underwood's term was to expire in 1927. He postponed announc-
ing his intentions regarding the 1926 Alabama Democratic senatorial
primary until he had made a thorough survey of the political scene.
When he did speak it was to make known' his retirement to private
life. Filling the seat in the United States Senate vacated by Under-
wood was a young attorney from Birmingham, Hugo L. Black.
The Klan claimed the credit for Underwood's withdrawal from poli-
tics. In the January, 1928, issue of The World's Work, Evans went so
far as to describe the Senator's removal from public life as one of the
"outstanding achievements" of the order. 8
Another series of events highlight the participation of the Klan in
Alabama politics. One member of Governor Bibb Graves' administra-
tion of 1927-1931 was Charles C. McCall. A Knight, he was elected
Attorney-General in the fall of 1926 with the full backing of his secret
fraternity. Before taking office, McCall created a furor throughout
the state by announcing that he had determined to appoint to the post of
assistant attorney-general James Esdale, Grand Dragon of the Realm
of Alabama.
The State Public Service Commission protested against the appoint-
ment, declaring in an open letter to McCall that the primary job of the
assistant attorney-general was to supervise all cases coming before
it, and since Esdale was without any experience in such matters, he
would only hamper the work of the commission. McCall reminded
the commission that responsibility for the efficient discharge of the
duties of the position under question rested by law not upon the Public
Service Commission, but upon the attorney-general.
It was Esdale himself who put an end to the affair. After a conver-
sation with Andrew G. Patterson, the president of the Public Service
Commission, in which he was told of the highly technical nature of
the work pertaining to the commission, Esdale decided to write the
Attorney-General-elect the next day declining the appointment. Es-
dale was reported as saying that after learning about the duties of the
assistant attorney-generalship, he would not accept the post at any
salary. Governor-elect Graves, who Edsale maintained had promised
to endorse him for the office, remained silent.
In its very first year the Graves administration was discomfited by
an outbreak of Klan lawlessness. First one county, then another, be-
came the scene of tar and featherings, whippings, and brandings.
In one county, Crenshaw, in the southern part of the state, "night-
riding" was indulged in so frequently by hooded and robed mobs that
a reign of terror could almost be said to have existed.
66 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Distraught over this eruption of Klan violence, Attorney-General
McCall quickly embarked upon a course of action which had all Ala-
bama agog. He publicly confessed membership in the secret order,
resigned from it, 9 assailed its brutalities, and then did everything in
his power as the chief law officer of the state to halt its course of
terrorism.
Graves was called upon to use the powers of his office to effect the
liquidation of the secret order in Alabama; he refused even to
consider such a course. Although the Governor did request the law
enforcement staff of the state to aid local officials in the investigation
of Klan violence and the prosecution of those found to be directly re-
sponsible for it, he placed in the Attorney-General's path many and
varied obstacles. Into McCall's hands fell a document pointing to
Graves' duplicity in the matter of stamping out Klan terrorism. It
was a letter from James Esdale to Ira B. Thompson, Exalted Cyclops of
the Klan in Luverne, dated September 14, 1927. The gist of
the letter was that Esdale was certain that he would be able to
convince Graves to render ineffective McCall's official course against
the secret fraternity. (Why Graves hamstrung McCall was not made
known to the public until a decade later, when the former admitted
that he had joined the Klan before acceding to the governorship.) 10
As a result of outraged public opinion and a more vigorous enforce-
ment of the law against vigilance committees, Klan terroristic activity
decreased rather quickly. But the Invisible Empire, Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan, Realm of Alabama, was now irreparably discredited; its
membership shrank steadily. The order remained vigorous enough,
however, to play an important role in Alabama during the presidential
election of 1928.
During the 1920's the Klan in Texas was as intensely active in politics
on the state level as it was on the local. In 1922 the secret order made
its influence felt quite dramatically in 1 the race for the United States
senatorship. In the Democratic primary of that year, which took
place on July 22, many individuals aggressively sought the seat held
by Charles A. Culberson, who after a quarter-century of continuous
service in the Upper House campaigned for re-election in a less
than forceful manner because of ill health. Three of the candidates for
the nomination were admittedly pro-Klan, while the remaining four
were anti-Klan. Included in the former group were an avowed
Knight, Earle B. Mayfield of Austin, a member of the State Railroad
Commission 11 ; Robert L. Henry of Waco, a Representative who had
recently terminated twenty years of service; and Sterling P. Strong of
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 67
Dallas, an attorney. Those comprising the latter group were, in addition
to Culberson himself," James E. Ferguson of Temple, a former Gover-
nor of the state; Clarence Ousley of Fort Worth, a former Assistant
Secretary of Agriculture; and Cullen F. Thomas of Dallas, a prominent
prohibitionist.
Before the primary took place the Klan of the Realm of Texas held
its own elimination contest, voting upon the three pro-Klan candidates. 13
Having chosen a man, Knights all over the Lone Star State voted solidly
for him in the primary. This Klan-endorsed nominee received a plural-
ity of the ballots cast. The four anti-Klan candidates, having devised
no plan of concerted action, remained in the race and split the majority
vote among themselves." In accordance with Texas law, since no one
candidate had received a majority, a second, or "run-off," primary was
held on August 26, limited to the two individuals who had polled the
greatest number of votes in the initial primary. The contenders were
Klan-endorsed Earle B. Mayfield and Klan-loathed James E. Fer-
guson. 16 Mayfield won the nomination by 60,000 votes.
What happened to ex-Representative Henry in the race for the
Democratic nomination for the senatorship should be noted. Months
before the primary was to take place Henry traveled to national Klan
headquarters in Atlanta to see Imperial Wizard Simmons and returned
to Texas with the Klan chiefs personal endorsement for the legis-
lative post. Mayfield, in his attempt to get the support of the
secret order, used a different tactic. He first approached the Grand
Dragon of the Realm of Texas and his cabinet, then the Great
Titans of all five Provinces and their councils of advisors, and lastly the
Exalted Cyclopses of many of the local Klans and their fellow officers.
Before Henry was aware of what was happening, the Klan in Texas
had disregarded the wishes of the Imperial Wizard and settled on
Mayfield as its choice for the United States senatorship. 19 Henry,
therefore, immediately terminated his affiliation with the Klan ( it was
alleged at the time that he had been a Knight in good standing but
resigned in indignation from the order), 17 and went to the press
with what he was wont to call a "double-cross." The former Repre-
sentative, embittered, remained in the race for the senatorship until the
end. It is not to be overlooked that he received the fewest number of
votes in the initial primary.
A substantial group of Democrats, taking the position that Mayfield
was the nominee of Klandom rather than of their party, turned to
the Republicans with the suggestion of a fusion candidate. E. P.
Wilmot of Austin, a banker, already tapped by the Republican party
68 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
as its choice for the United States senatorship was withdrawn, and
Democrat E. B. Peddy, a Houston attorney, was substituted as the
Republican and Independent Democratic candidate. In the general
election on November 7 Mayfield won easily, receiving 264,260 votes
to Peddy's 130,744.
After the election Peddy charged that his opponent had won the
seat in Congress through gross irregularities. The case against May-
field was brought before the Senate Committee on Privileges and
Elections, which conducted its hearings from May 8" to December 18,
1924. The most important charges submitted to the committee by
Peddy's attorneys were that voters had been intimidated by large
numbers of Mayfield campaigners; a vast sum of money, many times in
excess of the $10,000 which was the maximum permitted under Texas
law, had been spent by Mayfield forces in the two primaries; Mayfield
had not resigned from the Klan before his election, as he had al-
ways contended; and Klan funds had been put into a massive publicity
campaign in Mayfield's behalf. 18
The testimony pertaining to the use of Klan funds to secure the
election of Mayfield formed a high light in the many sessions held by
the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections. J. Q. Jett, who
had served the Klan variously as a recruiter in its Propagation Depart-
ment, as a member of its secret service, and as a doorman at its na-
tional headquarters in Atlanta, declared that Evans (very soon to be
Imperial Wizard, he was at the time Imperial Kligrapp) had given a
memorandum for $25,000 to N. N. Furney, cashier of the order, who had
gone to the bank and returned with a handbag containing money.
Evans had wrapped the bills in paper and then departed with a visit-
ing group of Texans that was to be sent back home to work in May-
field's behalf. Jett stated further that in a four- way conversation he
had engaged in, Evans had turned to Mrs. Tyler and told her that she
could well afford to present $100,000 from the Propagation Department
to the Mayfield campaign, in view of the fact that in 1922 Texas seemed
to be the only state in which a Knight could be elected to federal office.
The committee learned from Edward Young Clarke that when he
had been affiliated with the Klan as Imperial Kleagle, expenses of the
organization had had to be approved by a finance committee, with
which he himself had nothing to do, but from which he had heard
protests in the summer of 1922 regarding the amount of money Evans
had been spending in the Texas primaries then taking place.
At a dinner in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1922, Evans had remarked that
the Mayfield campaign had cost the Klan national headquarters be-
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 69
tween $80,000 and $100,000, according to F. M. Littlejohn, a former
Exalted Cyclops of the local Klan in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Furney testified before the committee in Mayfield's behalf that no
Klan funds had ever been drawn by Evans as described by Jett, and
that none had ever been dispatched to Texas for the Mayfield campaign.
J. E. McQuinn, assistant cashier of the Klan, had already taken the
stand before his immediate superior to deny that there was any item
in the books of the organization which pointed to contributions to the
Mayfield campaign in the primaries or general election.
The Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections heard testimony
on not only the efforts put forth by the national body of the secret
order to help elect Mayfield but also the efforts of the Klan of the Realm
of Texas and its individual local chapters. J. F. Collier, a public ac-
countant in Dallas, testified that in auditing the records of the local
Klan in that city in 1922 and 1923, he had found one item that was for
$11,102.04 under the entry "Educational and Propaganda," more than
half of which had been paid to Lowrey & Lowrey, a publicity outfit.
Collier explained that although he would be unable to declare under
oath for what purpose that amount had been paid to Lowrey &
Lowrey, he understood that that firm had handled funds for the local
Klan in Dallas in the political campaign of 1922.
H. M. Keeling told the committee that during a three-month period
in 1922 he had been, as an employee of Lowrey & Lowrey, in charge
of part of the publicity devoted to the political activities of the local
Klan in Dallas. "We were supposed," Keeling explained, "to create
sentiment in the county [Dallas] among voters in favor of the
entire klan ticket ... It was really a Democratic ticket, but there were
certain gentlemen on that Democratic ticket who were different from
others. We called them the klan ticket." In reply to a question as
to where he had secured the funds with which to pay expenses, Keel-
ing mentioned that he had received a number of checks from George
K. Butcher, an officer of the local Klan in Dallas, signed "George
King," and that they had been drawn on the account of a Benton
Joiner, as trustee. "George King" was a name belonging to no one in
the local Klan, Keeling went on, but on one occasion he had observed
Butcher from across the room signing a check, which when brought
over and handed to him had had the signature "George King".
Called as witnesses by counsel for Mayfield were two officials of
the Klan in Texas. F. G. Van Valkenburg, chairman of the finance
committee of the local Klan in Dallas, readily admitted that various
funds collected by the chapter to which he belonged had been used for
70 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
local political purposes during 1922, but stoutly denied that any part
of it had gone to help elect Mayfield to the United States senatorship.
As to the sum spent by his chapter in the 1922 political campaign,
Van Valkenburg said it had amounted to approximately $700 a week.
Admitting that Mayfield's name had been printed on the Klan
ticket, Van Valkenburg hastened to add that Mayfield, upon finding out
about it, had "raised Sam Hill." Brown Harwood, Grand Dragon of
the Realm of Texas in 1922, affirmed that the only Klan funds he had
ever spent in Mayfield's behalf was $6 or $8 for stationery and stamps.
After listening to this and other testimony of the most sensational
kind, testimony that had attracted the attention of the entire nation,
the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections decided that there
were no grounds for the unseating of Mayfield. As to the charges per-
taining specifically to the Klan's role in bringing about the election of
Mayfield, the committee was fully convinced of there being a lack of
evidence conclusively proving illegal activity.
In 1924 the Klan again played an influential role in the state politics
of Texas. In the Democratic gubernatorial primary, held on July 26,
the secret order quite actively campaigned for Judge Felix D. Robert-
son of Dallas. One of the Judge's opponents was Miriam A. Ferguson. 18
Her supporters would have chosen her spouse if they could, but he was
unable to have his name appear on the ballot. In 1917 James E.
Ferguson had been impeached as governor and declared permanently
ineligible to hold a state office. The chief charges brought against him
were that he had misapplied $5,600 of public money, borrowed $156,500
from a "questionable" source, exerted improper influence on the Board
of Regents, and violated the state constitution in his use of the veto. 30
It was thus that Mrs. Ferguson based her campaign (in the beginning,
at least) on a fight for the vindication of her husband at the hands of
the voters of the state.
With no candidate receiving a majority in the initial primary, Robert-
son and Mrs. Ferguson, as the individuals who had received the
greatest and next to the greatest number of votes respectively, 21 were
required to contend against each other in the "run-off." In the offing
was one of the most heated political campaigns to take place in Texas.
The group supporting Mrs. Ferguson adopted as its war whoop "Me for
Ma"; that of Robertson, the core of which was composed of Knights,
countered with "Not Ma for me. Too much Pa." 22
Ferguson became campaign manager for his wife and made most of
her political addresses for her. 28 Although he continually assaulted
Robertson as the "Klandidate," Ferguson was personally not in too much
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 71
disagreement with the anti-Negro, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, and
anti-foreign-born philosophy of the secret fraternity. Consequently,
in the campaign "Pa" Ferguson's fight with the Klan was directed
against its desire for political domination in Texas ( which clashed with
his own), employing extra-legal methods to carry out its regulative
program, and being an organization in which a hierarchy was able to
accumulate much wealth and inordinate power. On their part, Robert-
son and those who stumped the state for him tactically ignored Mrs.
Ferguson in their campaign speeches and denounced her husband
as, for example, an "egregious scoundrel," an "insidious liar," and a
"whiskey politician."
In the "run-off," held on August 23, Mrs. Ferguson obtained the
backing of five of the seven candidates who were dropped after the
initial primary, for each of the five was an individual of strong anti-
Klan persuasion. Throughout the state large numbers of politicians
flocked to Mrs. Ferguson's support in the second primary, not because
they were for her but because they were against Robertson as the Klan-
endorsed candidate. Despite the backing of the Invisible Empire,
Robertson was defeated in the second primary by nearly 100,000 votes. 21
At the State Democratic convention in Austin on September 2-3, the
Klan was to suffer its worst political drubbing to date. The whole
affair was completely controlled by the Ferguson wing of the party. So
that the convention would be thoroughly anti-Klan in personnel, no
delegation composed of a substantial group of Knights was seated and
every attempt by certain delegations to have a friend of the order
placed on the important credentials and platform committees was
decisively defeated by the election of a substitute committeeman
favorable to the Fergusons. The entire proceedings were filled with
oratory mercilessly condemning the Invisible Empire and its methods.
Evidently feeling that all this was not enough, the convention inserted
in its platform an anti-Klan plank that was indeed not meant to be
merely glanced at. It began: "The Democratic party emphatically
condemns and denounces what is known as the Invisible Empire of
the Ku Klux Klan as an un-democratic, un-Christian and un-American
organization."
Mrs. Ferguson's Republican opponent in the general election, held on
November 4, was George C. Butte, dean of the law school of the
University of Texas. He was assailed by "Pa" Ferguson as "a little
mutton-headed professor with a Dutch diploma," who was taking
orders from Grand Dragon of the Realm of Texas Z. E. Marvin, "the
same as Felix Robertson did." Butte, maintaining that the Fergusons
72 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
were attempting to ride into the executive mansion in Austin on the
Klan issue cried, "Mr. Ferguson calls everybody a Ku Klux who doesn't
agree with him. He has even called me one."
The November 4 election, according to the New York Times, signal-
ized "the greatest political revolution that ever took place in Texas."
Tens of thousands of rock-ribbed Democrats cast a ballot for a Re-
publican candidate for the very first time. Klansmen deserted whole-
sale the Democratic party to back the Republican gubernatorial
nominee. That was not all. A number of anti-Klan Democrats, out-
raged at the thought that a governor removed from office on impeach-
ment charges could return to power through subterfuge, had founded
soon after the "run-off" an association called the "Good Government
Democratic League of Texas," the purpose of which was to aid the
Republicans in defeating Mrs. Ferguson in the general election. This
newly formed organization of anti-Ferguson Democrats had given its
full support to Butte.
Butte was defeated by more than 125,000 votes. 28 Mrs. Ferguson
became the first female Governor of the state of Texas. An outstanding
southern editor, George Fort Milton of the Chattanooga News, reflect-
ing upon the election, penned, "The big trouble with the Klan political-
ly is that its mere existence allows a vicious band of reactionaries to
shelter behind the anti-Klan charge. . . . They offer a choice of two
evils, and I will confess it is a terrible choice. Had it not been for the
Klan Jim Ferguson never could have elected his wife (which means-
himself) in Texas." 88
In addition to being marked by behind-the-scenes domination by her
husband, favoritism in the granting of contracts for public works, and
a policy of extreme liberality in dispensing of pardons, Mrs. Fergu-
son's two-year administration was characterized by a not unexpected
hostility to the Invisible Empire. She practiced what she had preached
as governor-nominate regarding the non-appointment to, and the
removal from, state office of any individual who was a member of the
Klan. Also, she convinced the legislature to pass a bill making it un-
lawful for any secret society to allow its members to be masked or
disguised in public.
In 1926 Mrs. Ferguson sought re-election to the governorship. In
the Democratic primary she was opposed by the youthful and able
Attorney-General Daniel Moody. During the race Mrs. Ferguson and
her husband, in an effort to make the Klan issue serve them as it had
two years before, attempted to link Moody with the Invisible Empire.
However, since Moody, first as District Attorney of Williamson and
STATEWIDE ACTIVITIES 73
Travis counties, and then as the chief law officer of the state, had
diligently and successfully fought the secret order, the Fergusons
could not effectively accuse him of being sympathetic to it. The
nomination was given to Moody, 27 who went on to win by a 350,000
majority over his Republican opponent that fall.
During the primary campaign "Pa" Ferguson had declared that
Moody's election would usher in "the rule of the Wizard." But a little
over a week after he had won the Democratic nomination for the gover-
norship, which was tantamount to victory in the general election to
follow, Moody let it be known that he wanted the State Democratic
convention to adopt a plank calling for the resignation of all holders
of state office who were members of secret societies that tended to
"breed hate, prejudice and religious jealousy."
jl As the second half of the 1920's got under way the disintegration of
the Klan in Texas was quite evident. ,A.t the beginning of 1926, there
were about 18,000 paying members of the order in the Lone Star State
as compared with 97,000 a year and a half before, according to former
Grand Dragon of the Realm of Texas Z. E. Marvin. That stronghold of
the secret fraternity, Dallas, could account for a mere 1,200 Knights
in 1926, whereas two years previously it was able to boast of 13,000.
In none of the five provinces into which the Realm of Texas was divid-
ed did there remain the political power that elected Earle B. Mayfield
to the U.S. Senate in 1922 and almost elected Felix D. Robertson to
the governorship in 1924. "At the opening of this year [1926] not a
province . . . could pay its help," Marvin was quoted as saying. Some
observers even went so far as to declare that a Klan endorsement of
an office seeker in Texas would mean certain defeat for him. While
on a pleasure trip to New York City in the summer of 1927, Governor
Moody, in reply to a question as to whether the order continued to be
influential back home, declared unhesitatingly, "The Klan in Texas is
as dead as the proverbial doornail." It was obvious that the fraternity's
tremendous power in the state, both numerically and politically,
was no more. Be that as it may, the Klan still possessed enough
strength to affect the voting in Texas during the presidential election
of 1928.
Chapter VI
DEBUT IN NATIONAL POLITICS
The national convention of the Republican party held in Cleveland,
Ohio, from June 10 to 12, 1924, was a harmonious affair. The first
and only ballot for the presidential nomination gave to the occupant
of the White House, Calvin Coolidge, all but 44 of the 1,109 votes
cast. When former Governor Frank O. Lowden of Illinois rejected
the vice-presidential nomination awarded him on the second ballot,
the convention promptly chose as Coolidge's running mate Charles
G. Dawes, a Chicago banker who had served as the first Director of the
Budget.
In the drafting and adoption of the platform, too, a minimum of
discord was evidenced. Each plank accepted by the delegates was
a true reflection of the views of their standard-bearer. Among other
things, the platform praised governmental economy and tax reduction,
declared against American entry into the League of Nations, endorsed
the World Court, approved the limitation of armaments, pledged agri-
cultural reform, recommended a continued restrictive immigration
policy, and demanded punishment of all those guilty of the recently
exposed corruption in government.
There were, however, circumstances concerning one area of the
platform-making that did jar the serenity of the convention. R. B.
Creager, a national committeeman from Texas and a member of the
Committee on Platform and Resolutions, headed a small group which
demanded of the party that it adopt a declaration against the Klan.
The delegation from New York also favored an official denunciation
of the secret fraternity. Dr. Charles F. Thwing, president emeritus of
Western Reserve University, presented to the Committee on Platform
and Resolutions a proposal signed by several prominent citizens ask-
ing for an anti-Klan plank. The seven-hour animated discussion by
the platform committee regarding the inclusion of a plank condemning
the order broke out at one point in a heated argument.
The most interesting aspect of the anti-Klan plank issue at the
Republican national convention was an enterprise with which the
delegates themselves had nothing to do. Sixty representatives of the
Klan, headed by Evans and Walter F. Bossert, Grand Dragon of the
74
DEBUT IN NATIONAL POLITICS 75
Realm of Indiana, traveled to Cleveland, where they set up head-
quarters at the Hotel Statler. This deputation of the Invisible Empire
threatened to "punish" Creager for his persistent attacks, and swore to
remain on the scene until the platform committee completely rejected
the idea of an arraignment of their order.
What the platform committee finally presented to the convention
for its consideration was a plank, promptly adopted, which contained
no direct and positive statements on the Klan, but read simply: "The
Republican Party reaffirms its unyielding devotion to the Constitution
and to the guarantees of civil, political, and religious liberty therein
contained."
The Republicans heard from the sixty Knights who had gone to
Cleveland more than their views on an anti-Klan plank. Nothing less
than sensational was the statement which Klan headquarters at the
Hotel Statler gave out on June 9. It read: "All of our boys throughout
the nation will understand only one thing, and that is Senator James
E. Watson [of Indiana] for Vice President — flat. We will deny any
responsibility for the defeat of the Republican Party at the polls in
November if Watson is not selected for Vice President, on the ground
that he is the most available candidate to carry the Middle Western
States which are necessary for the election of Coolidge."
Senator Watson immediately spurned the endorsement of the secret
order, saying, "I don't belong to the Ku Klux Klan. 1 If they have issued
a statement naming me, they have done it for the express purpose
of injuring me. Such a statement was made without my knowledge
or consent, and is wholly without authority from me or anyone having
the right to represent me." Watson's advisors vigorously assailed the
Klan pronouncement. Many of them, believing that the Senator's
chances for the vice-presidential nomination ( never very good to begin
with) were now completely destroyed, urged him to release the In-
diana delegation, which was pledged to him for that office. Watson
refused to do so.
Thereupon Evans repudiated the Klan declaration as unauthorized
and untrue: "The statement that the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are
demanding the nomination of any man to any office is unqualifiedly
false. I am the only man authorized to authoritatively speak for the
Klan, and I solemnly affirm that the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is
not in politics . . . and the statement appearing in the press attributed
to me concerning Senator James E. Watson is without foundation of
fact." 2 Here the matter rested.
Antipodal to the brief and tranquil Republican national convention
76 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
was the Democratic one held at Madison Square Garden in New York;
it lasted from June 24 to July 9 amid scenes of the grossest sort of
antipathy and factiousness. Nothing could alter the fact that the
Democratic party was violently split on a new political issue — the
Klan.
Unlike the case with the Republicans, the Klan question could not be
disposed of quickly and quietly. Historically and traditionally, there
were two great wings of the Democratic party constantly at odds with
each other — the South and the East. The former was rural, agricul-
tural, overwhelmingly Protestant, native-born, prohibitionist, and con-
servative, while the latter was urban, industrial, heavily Catholic, of
recent immigrant stock, anti-prohibitionist, and liberal. The issue of
the secret order could do no other than to widen appreciably the
gulf between the two wings of the party, for the South was the home
of the Klan and the East the center of anti-Klanism. s
The proceedings of the first four days of the convention, however,
gave no indication that actual calamity was to take place. Senator Pat
Harrison of Mississippi, as temporary chairman and keynote speaker,
and Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana, who had gained fame as
chief investigator of the fraudulent leasing of naval oil reserves at
Teapot Dome and Elk Hills, as permanent chairman, scored the Re-
publican party. Both addresses were received with the enthusiastic
applause of all delegates. The nominating speeches did contain allu-
sions to the Klan issue, which triggered lively demonstrations from
certain sets of delegates on the floor and visitors (the overwhelming
majority of whom were anti-Klan New Yorkers) in the galleries.* But
all this was quite natural.
It was not until the fifth day, when the Committee on Platform and
Resolutions made its report to the delegates, that every Democrat
knew for certain that his convention was hopelessly split into two
camps. The chairman of the platform committee, Senator Homer S.
Cummings of Connecticut, in a manner that betrayed fatigue and agi-
tation, announced that the committee had reached unanimous agree-
ment on all planks of the platform except two — one having to do with
the League of Nations and the other with freedom of religion, speech,
and press. The debate on the former, the convention was told, "though
prolonged, was entirely amiable," while on the latter, it continued "all
night long" becoming "more heated" as time went on, and finally
"somewhat acrimonious."
After all the planks prepared by Cummings' committee had been
read to the delegates, Permanent Chairman Walsh gave the floor to
DEBUT IN NATIONAL POLITICS 77
Newton D. Baker of Ohio, Wilson's Secretary of War from 1916 to
1921, who proceeded to offer a plank drawn up by a minority of the
platform committee which advocated American membership in the
League of Nations. When the Ohioan had finished, William H. Pat-
tangall, a leading politician of Maine, was permitted to offer an amend-
ment to the "Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of
Press" plank which had been endorsed by fourteen of the fifty-four
members of the committee.
The minority proposed adding to the single-paragraphed plank
reaffirming the Democratic party's "adherence and devotion" to "those
cardinal principles" in the Constitution regarding freedom of religion,
speech, and press the following two sentences : "We condemn political
secret societies of all lands as opposed to the exercise of free govern-
ment and contrary to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and
of the Constitution of the United States. We pledge the Democratic
Party to oppose any effort on the part of the Ku Klux Klan or any
organization to interfere with the religious liberty or political freedom
of any citizen, or to limit the civic rights of any citizen or body of
citizens because of religion, birthplace or racial origin."
Then a duel took place in the convention hall. This combat be-
tween the supporters of each plank on the freedom of religion, speech,
and press was fought with the deadly weapon of words under formal
conditions of debate and in the presence of seconds on each side, the
latter being hundreds of hissing, booing, laughing, screaming, cheer-
ing, hurrahing, applauding delegates and visitors. Nicks were suffered;
blood was drawn. As first speaker for the minority plank, Pattangall
believed that the principal difference within the platform committee
arose from the question of whether the platform should be absolutely
frank or not. If it was unwise to name the Klan it was unwise to put in
the platform something that meant the secret order. At one point he
uttered, "There is more in this matter than the mere naming of a
secret organization. There has crept into American life so strong an
influence in certain States that United States Senators told me last
night that if the Klan was opposed by them they could not be re-elected
to their seats in the Senate."
Bainbridge Colby of New York, Secretary of State under Wilson, was
blunt as he could be for the minority report: "I am somewhat ac-
customed to the cowardice that invades the issue of the Ku Klux Klan,
but I confess to my surprise that, seated on this platform, I am obliged
to witness the hardihood (or shall I say effrontery?) of its open defense.
... If you are opposed to the Ku Klux Klan, for God's sake, say so. . . .
78 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
I wish to record my dissent as a Democrat to the majority report. It
does not satisfy my thought. It does not satisfy my manhood. It is
no credit to the Democratic Party."
Governor Cameron Morrison of North Carolina, in support of the
majority plank, began by defending the rights of the individuals who
"mistakenly" belonged to the Klan. "Are we," he asked, "without trial
and without evidence, in a political convention where only basic prin-
ciples should be dealt with, to try, condemn and execute more than a
million men who are the professed followers of the Lord Jesus Christ?"
If the majority resolution were passed, the North Carolinian prophesied
that "upon every stump upon which a loyal Democratic orator stands
in the coming campaign he will attack the principles of the Ku Klux
Klan, with reason, with logic, and it will wipe it from the face of the
earth, in front of the onward march of the great Democratic party."
Former Mayor Andrew C. Erwin of Athens, Georgia, for the minori-
ty, spoke briefly. The convention could, he emphasized, by adopting
the report of the majority, evade the issue, but such a course would,
in effect, mean giving its approval to the activities of the Invisible
Empire. Erwin pointed out: "You hear on every side, in the lobbies
of the hotels, in the halls, and upon the floor of this Convention, that
we should take no action relating to the Klan any more than we should
take action relating to the Masons or Elks or any other secret organi-
zation. I cannot bring myself to this view of it; I have not heard of
the Masons or Elks moving from State Convention to State Convention,
from National Convention to National Convention, regardless of party,
a highly paid staff of officials, lobbyists and spying investigators, with
a view of controlling the acts of delegates chosen to represent the
people of this Country." 5
Toward the beginning of his twenty-five minute address in favor of
the majority plank, William Jennings Bryan rapped, "Note, my friends,
that they [endorsers of the minority plank] take our report, every word
of it, and note also that we offered to take every word of their report
but three. We said, 'Strike out three words [Ku Klux Klan] and there
will be no objection.' But three words were more to them than the
welfare of a party in a great campaign." He went on to say, "I am not
willing to bring discord into my party. The Democratic Party is united
on all the economic issues. We have never been so united since I
have known politics. . . . Now, when we are all united and all stand
with a dauntless courage and enthusiasm never excelled, these people
tell us that we must turn aside from these things and divide our party
with a religious issue and cease to be a great political party." For
DEBUT IN NATIONAL POLITICS 79
his peroration the "Peerless Leader" chose the following words: "It
was Christ on the Cross who said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.' And, my friends, we can exterminate Ku Kluxism
better by recognizing their honesty and teaching them that they are
wrong." 9
So sounded some arguments from some speakers. Then the polling
of delegates took place. For the nearly two hours during which it
occurred the convention was in an uproar. Chairs were overturned.
State standards were broken. Fist-fights were started. The roll call
was interrupted time and again by delegates who wanted either to
change their own votes or to challenge the accuracy of the final votes of
their states as cast by their chairmen. From beginning to end the vot-
ing was close. 7 The final official tabulation showed that the entire
number of votes cast was 1,083-6/20. The number of "ayes" was
541-3/20; the number of "noes," 542-3/20. Thus, the Democratic na-
tional convention rejected the inclusion of an anti-Klan plank in its
platform for 1924 by the narrow margin of one vote.
Ultimately the platform as a whole was adopted by a viva voce vote
of the convention. Among other things, the document lashed out at
the corruption within the government during the Republican adminis-
tration under Harding, defended the income tax against the Republican
party's policy of increased tax reduction, advocated a lower tariff, en-
dorsed the limitation of armaments, promised agricultural reform,
proposed that a referendum be held to decide the issue of American
membership in the League of Nations, 8 and reaffirmed the Democratic
party's devotion to the principles of freedom of religion, speech, and
press.
When it came to choosing a presidential nominee, the Democratic
convention was once more ruptured by the Klan controversy. The
candidate of the anti-Klan delegates was Governor Alfred E. Smith of
New York. William McAdoo of California, who had achieved great
prominence as Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury during World War
I, was the choice of the pro-Klan delegates (and of the Klan itself),
although he repeatedly denied any affiliation with the secret order and
spoke out against much of what the organization believed in.
The balloting began on June 30. On the first ballot McAdoo obtain-
ed 431^2 votes; Smith, 241; former Governor James M. Cox of Ohio, the
party's standard-bearer in 1920, received 59 votes; Pat Harrison, 43%;
and Oscar W. Underwood, 42/2. The rest of the votes were divided
among fourteen favorite sons. Soon the minor candidates dropped
out, leaving the field to McAdoo and Smith. But as ballot after ballot
80 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
was taken, and as day after day passed, neither the Californian nor
the New Yorker was able to muster the two-thirds majority which the
Democratic party had for almost a century ruled necessary for the
presidential nomination. After the longest deadlock in the history of
national political conventions, the delegates wearily chose on the
103rd ballot John W. Davis, a New York City corporation lawyer, who
had during the course of his career served as Representative from his
home state of West Virginia, Solicitor-General under Wilson, and
Ambassador to Great Britain. For vice-president the liberal Governor
Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, brother of William Jennings, was
nominated.
That the Democratic national convention of 1924 had been rent
asunder heartened one group of politicians — the Republicans. One
individual in the higher echelons of the G.O.P. was asked by a reporter
what he thought the effects of the Madison Square Garden imbroglio
would be. "Well," he smiled, "the Democrats might have done better
by us, of course. They might have disbanded and gone home. But
short of that they've done about all they could for Coolidge and Dawes."
Just as a deputation of the Invisible Empire had gone to Cleveland
and set up headquarters near the scene of the Republican party's na-
tional convention, so did one travel to New York City to do the same
for the Democratic party's. This time the Imperial Wizard was ac-
companied by a far greater number of individuals who ranked near
the top of the Klan hierarchy. In a five-room suite on the fifteenth
floor of the Hotel McAlpin, Evans conferred continually with a hand-
ful of Grand Dragons: Walter F. Bossert of the Realm of Indiana,
James A. Comer of the Realm of Arkansas, James Esdale of the Realm
of Alabama, Nathan Bedford Forrest of the Realm of Georgia, Fred L.
Gifford of the Realm of Oregon, N. C. Jewett of the Realm of Okla-
homa, and Z. E. Marvin of the Realm of Texas. 9
Upon arriving in New York, the Klan officials made public their in-
tention of having a voice in the choosing of the platform and candidates
by the Madison Square Garden convention. These leaders let it be
known that if they could prevent the Democrats, as they did the Re-
publicans, from mentioning the Klan by name in the platform, they
would credit themselves with an important victory. With the platform
adopted, they would turn to preventing the nomination of anyone
outspokenly critical of their order.
Although the Klan leaders refused to divulge the exact number of
Knights sitting in the various state delegations, they did assert that
in the impending fight to prevent the adoption of an anti-Klan plank,
DEBUT IN NATIONAL POLITICS 81
the Invisible Empire could count on the support of 85 per cent of the
Georgia delegation, 80 per cent of the Arkansas, Kansas, and Texas
delegations, 75 per cent of the Mississippi one, and more than 50 per
cent of the Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and
West Virginia delegations.
As to those delegates occupying seats in the convention who were
at the time dues-paying members of the Invisible Empire, the New
York World placed the figure at approximately 300. This newspaper
also noted that "More than one United States Senator wearing a dele-
gate's badge is suspected of K.K.K. membership." Every delegation,
with perhaps three or four exceptions, had from two to thirty Klans-
men or pro-Klansmen, reported the Baltimore Sun from one of its
sources. According to the New York Times, Senator Earle B. Mayfield
of Texas, a delegate-at-large from that state, and Virgil C. Pettie, a
delegate-at-large from Arkansas, were said to be serving along with
the more than a half dozen Grand Dragons on the inner council set
up by Evans to decide Klan strategy at the convention. Representing
his home state on the Democratic National Committee, Pettie was at
the same time Imperial Klabee of the Realm of Arkansas. Although the
Arkansan was the only member of the Democratic National Committee
who admitted to belonging to the Invisible Empire, it was believed
that at least two other national committeemen were Knights. The
Klan was known to have "representatives" on the Committee on Plat-
form and Resolutions. While it was the New York Times that took
refuge in the word "representatives," the Baltimore Sun declared less
cautiously that Texan Alva Bryan of the platform committee was a
Klansman.
Soon after the convention began its proceedings, the Klan leaders
decided that the progress of the fight against an anti-Klan plank war-
ranted calling in reserves. Among the first to be contacted was W. A.
Hanger, an attorney from Fort Worth. (It was said by those "in the
know" that whenever in great trouble Evans summoned him. ) Hanger
was the chief counsel for Mayfield before the Senate committee which
conducted the investigation of the charges of unlawful practices in the
election of the Texan to the Upper House. When Hanger found it
impossible to heed the call to New York because of illness in the
family, Hollins N. Randolph, chairman of the Georgia delegation, and
Alva Bryan acted in his place to help the Imperial Wizard.
With the defeat of the anti-Klan plank, Evans and his aides gave
their full attention to the process of nominating the presidential can-
didate. Knights were notified by their leaders that if McAdoo were
82 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
unable to win the nomination, the order would lend its support for
that post to an individual not unfriendly to the Invisible Empire,
Senator Samuel M. Ralston of Indiana. As a matter of fact, right from
the beginning Ralston was more acceptable to some Klan officials, par-
ticularly Grand Dragons Bossert and Marvin, than was McAdoo. To
their way of thinking, the former Secretary of the Treasury's chances
of being nominated were slim indeed because of his having been re-
tained by oilman Edward L. Doheny, who had benefited from the
fraudulent leasing of governmental oil reserves during the Harding
administration, and because of the bitter hostility to him of the pro-
Smith East. Word of the Klan's eyeing Ralston for standard-bearer
of the Democratic party got around, and the Senator felt it necessary
to announce that he was not a member of the secret fraternity and that
he challenged anyone to prove the contrary. Ralston's statement did
him no political good; while it did not gain him the support of any
important anti-Klan politicians, it lost him the favor of some influential
Klansmen.
With the Republican and Democratic national conventions being a
matter of history, candidates for office, and party workers turned to
electioneering. In a campaign speech made at Sea Girt, New Jersey,
on August 22, Davis referred to the Klan in the following manner:
"If any organization, no matter what it chooses to be called, whether
Ku Klux Klan or by any other name, raises the standard of racial and
religious prejudice or attempts to make racial origins or religious
beliefs the test of fitness for public office, it does violence to the spirit
of American institutions and must be condemned. ..." After attack-
ing the order, the Democratic candidate then expressed the hope that
Coolidge would, "by some explicit declaration," do the same, and thus
remove the Klan issue from the political debate. 10
Although the Republican presidential nominee completely ignored
the Klan question throughout the entire campaign, his running mate
did pick up the gauntlet on behalf of the party. In Augusta, Maine, on
the day following Davis' Sea Girt address, Dawes not only condemned
any American organization that appealed to racial or religious pre-
judice, but went on to say that although "the Ku Klux Klan in many
localities and among many people represents only an instinctive grop-
ing for leadership, moving in the interest of law enforcement, ... it is
not the right way to forward law enforcement."
Even before Davis and Dawes castigated the order, the standard-
bearer of the new Progressive party," the reform Senator Robert M.
LaFollette of Wisconsin, in a letter made public on August 8, had
DEBUT IN NATIONAL POLITICS 83
stated: "I am unalterably opposed to the evident purpose of the
secret organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, as disclosed by its
public acts." Thus, before the political campaign of 1924 was half
over, the entire nation had heard from Davis, Dawes, and LaFollette
on the Klan.
In a statement issued on August 22, Imperial Wizard Evans declared
that the strength of the. Invisible Empire would be thrown against the
candidacy of LaFollette. "LaFollette is the arch-enemy of the nation,"
the document read. "No man who endangered the success of his na-
tion in time of war is fit to hold any office, much less occupy the posi-
tion through which the country must stand or fall." 12 As to the nomi-
nees of the two major parties: "Coolidge and Davis are nationals and
Americans, aides of the Klan in the attempt to 'Americanize America,'
and for this reason the Klan will take no part in the political struggle
as far as they are concerned." Since this statement was made public
on the same day as, and obviously just before, Davis' Sea Girt speech,
the Imperial Wizard was compelled to revise very quickly his opinion
of the Democratic candidate.
The Klan was not the only organization to attack the Progressive
party candidate during the election of 1924. Rather than forcefully
coming to grips with each other on the basic questions of the day, the
Republican and Democratic parties tended, increasingly so, to direct
their efforts against LaFollette and his radicalism. As the campaign
wore on the Klan issue was pretty much forgotten, although every
now and then Davis in the midst of an address was interrupted by
hecklers demanding that he review his position on the secret fraternity.
The election was a Republican landslide. Coolidge captured the
electoral vote' of every state in the East, Middle West ( except Wiscon-
sin), and far West; Davis carried only the "Solid South" and Oklahoma;
LaFollette won the electoral vote of his home state alone. In popular
votes, Coolidge received 15,725,016; Davis, 8,385,586; and LaFollette,
4,822,856.
Knights everywhere, with no small measure of pride, proclaimed
their order responsible for the desolation of the Madison Square
Garden convention and for the political defeat of Davis a few months
later. Speaking for the Invisible Empire as no other individual could,
Imperial Wizard Evans asseverated:
"Our enemies, and some of our friends, charge or credit us with the
debacle of the . . . Democratic National Convention, and with the
defeat of Mr. Davis that followed. There is some truth in the charge;
to be' sure, the Klan was not present as an organization or with an
84 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
organized force of delegates on the floor of the convention, but it was
present as an intangible force. Delegates were afraid of what we
might do! Nor did we conduct any campaign against Mr. Davis, but
his official repudiation of the mental attitude taken by the Democratic
platform in regard to our organization, and his subsequent attacks on
us. alienated hundreds of thousands of voters — and those not alone
inside the ranks of the Klan."
Chapter VII
WAR AGAINST AL SMITH
On August 2, 1927, while vacationing in the Black Hills of South
Dakota, President Calvin Coolidge called together a group of reporters
to hand to each of them a slip of paper containing a dozen words:
"I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty eight." This
was indeed good news to all those members of the G.O.P. whose am-
bition it was to be the nation's Chief Executive. One of those aspir-
ants — and by far the most "available" — was Herbert Clark Hoover
of California. After having achieved great fame during World War
I as Chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium and as United
States Food Administrator, he was appointed Secretary of Commerce
by Harding and was then serving in that capacity under Coolidge.
By the time the 1928 national convention of the Republican party
began its proceedings in Kansas City, Missouri, which lasted from
June 12 to 15, Hoover's nomination appeared inevitable. As had been
expected, the Secretary of Commerce captured the prize on the very
first ballot. Upon his receiving 837 of the 1,089 votes cast, a motion to
make the nomination unanimous was easily carried. Selected to be
Hoover's running mate was Charles Curtis of Kansas, majority leader
in the Senate.
As had been the case in the 1924 convention, the drafting and adopt-
ing of the platform was accomplished with the barest amount of con-
tention. Among other things, the platform praised governmental
economy and tax reduction, recommended a high tariff policy, declared
against American entry into the League of Nations, and demanded full
enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment.
The Democratic national convention was held in Houston, Texas,
from June 26 to 29; it was a quite different affair from the long and
acrimonious one of four years before. The dissension between the
southern and eastern wings of the party still existed, but two events
had taken place which made for peaceful convention proceedings. In
a letter to George Fort Milton, editor of the Chattanooga News, made
public on September 17, 1927, William G. McAdoo had declared that
"in the interests of party unity" he would not seek the presidential
nomination. Then, on September 23, leaders of the Democracy from
85
86 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
eight mountain and Pacific coast states, the majority of whom were
ardent McAdooites at the Madison Square Garden convention in 1924,
had met in Ogden, Utah, where they endorsed the already booming
candidacy of Alfred E. Smith. Thus it was that in 1928 the selection
of the Governor of New York as the party's nominee met with merely
token opposition.
Contending for the nomination in addition to Smith was just a
handful of favorite sons, including Senators James A. Reed of Missouri
and Walter F. George of Georgia, and Representative Cordell Hull
of Tennessee. On the first ballot Smith received only 10 votes fewer
than the two-thirds majority necessary for the nomination. Before
another ballot could be taken Ohio switched its vote to the Governor,
thus giving the party its standard-bearer for 1928. For vice-president
the delegates chose Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas, permanent chair-
man of the convention and minority leader in the Senate. As a South-
erner, Protestant, and prohibitionist, Robinson balanced the ticket.
In contrast to what had taken place in the 1924 Democratic conven-
tion, the platform was drafted and adopted in an easy and quick man-
ner. The document pledged the party to, among other things, a low
tariff policy, agricultural reform, international co-operation ( there was
no mention of the issue of American membership in the League of
Nations), and an "honest" attempt to enforce the Eighteenth Amend-
ment.
In January, 1928, Imperial Wizard Evans prophesied that his order
was going to be more strongly represented in the Democratic party's
national convention of 1928 than it had been in the one of four years
before. During forthcoming proceedings, Evans went on to elaborate,
all the influence of the Invisible Empire would be directed toward an
effort to prevent Smith's receiving the party's nomination.
Just before the opening session of the Democratic national conven-
tion a group of Klan officials, headed by Evans, arrived in Houston to
set up headquarters at the Hotel Milby. 1 The Imperial Wizard author-
ized a statement to the press to the effect that his order was on the
scene to fight for the inclusion in the platform of a plank pledging
complete enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment, and not to take
part in the choosing of candidates.
With the adoption of the plank on the enforcement of the Eighteenth
Amendment, Evans and his aides did participate in the contest over
the selection of nominees. They attempted to halt the avalanche of
votes for Smith, and failed. They then tried to prevent the choosing
of Robinson for the vice-presidency, and again failed. 2 (It can be as-
WAR AGAINST AL SMITH 87
sumed that the Klan opposed the nomination of Robinson because a
running mate who was a Southerner, Protestant, and prohibitionist
would measurably increase Smith's chances of being elected. )
With the same audacity that he had used in taking credit for the
Klan for the defeat of Davis in the election of 1924, Imperial Wizard
Evans promised that the secret fraternity would bring failure to
the standard-bearer of the Democratic party in 1928 should Smith be
given the nomination. In order to make good the threat of the Im-
perial Wizard, the Klan as an active participant in the presidential
campaign of 1928 employed a variety of methods and techniques. In
the first week of July the local Klan in Wahouma, Alabama, a hamlet
not far from Birmingham, held an anti-Smith demonstration to which
the townspeople were invited. The high light of the evening was the
hanging of the New Yorker in effigy. Before being strung up, the man
of straw had a knife plunged into his throat, mercurochrome poured
over him to heighten the effect of the "assassination," received a shot
or two in the middle, and was dragged around the hall to receive vigor-
ous kicks from vengeful Knights. After the "lynching," the more than
200 individuals in attendance listened to speeches by leaders of the
local Klan denouncing the "steam roller" tactics at the Houston con-
vention.
In a letter sent out to every local Klan under his jurisdiction, Amos
C. Duncan, Grand Dragon of the Realm of North Carolina, requested
that a fund of at least $8,000 be raised to fight Smith in the Tar Heel
State. Before making the actual appeal for the money, Duncan care-
fully explained why it was needed: "I am immediately putting five
more whirlwind campaign speakers on tour in this State, using them
seven days per week until November 6th [election day]. I am having
prepared literally tons of powerful campaign literature which you
Klansmen must distribute during the final phases of this crusade to
every voter in North Carolina. My office will function 24 hours per
day until victory is won." 8
Duncan's counterpart in Georgia also found it necessary to resort
to an appeal for a campaign chest to defeat Smith in his race for the
presidency. Grand Dragon Nathan Bedford Forrest contacted every
Knight in the Empire State of the South, requesting from each a con-
tribution of anything from $.50 to $5,000.
On a ten-acre plot in Virginia, stiuated but a few miles from the
nation's capital, stood a huge electric sign announcing the support of
the Klan of that state for the Republican candidate. Owned by the
88 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
secret order, this tract of land was used throughout the campaign for
Hoover rallies of Arlington and Fairfax counties.
Less than a week before election day the local Klan in Miami,
Florida, condemned five of its members for lending support to Smith's
campaign. The Exalted Cyclops of the chapter went so far as to call
upon the most prominent Knight of the five, Louis C. Allen, a former
sheriff of Dade County, to stand trial before the order for his "major
offense."
The Klan during this presidential race undertook the distribution
of a body of political writings; all of it, or practically so, was simply
anti-Smith literature. Each of the writings can be put into one of
four categories, according to the basis for its attack on the New Yorker:
(1) his Catholicism; (2) his being a "wet"; (3) his Tammany con-
nections; and (4) his so-called "alienism."
Of the total sum of anti-Smith campaign literature disseminated by
the Klan, the largest — and most intemperate — portion had to do
with the Governor's religious background. Smith as President would
"no doubt fill every key position in the Republic with Roman Catholics
. . . [and] no doubt leave the Army and Navy in the hands of Rome,"
the September 5, 1928, issue of the Official Monthly Bulletin of the
Realm of Mississippi prophesied uneasily. In her book, Klansmen:
Guardians of Liberty, which although written in 1926, enjoyed a wide
circulation among Knights during the 1928 presidential race, "Klans-
woman" Alma Birdwell White went a step further: if Smith ever
occupied the White House he would so "manipulate the reins of
government in behalf of the Roman Pontiff" that "Free speech, free
press, free public schools . . . would soon be things of the past."
From the writings distributed by the order attacking the New Yorker
on the other three counts, only a few excerpts need be brought forward
to convey adequately the flavor of the assault. Regarding Smith's anti-
prohibitionism, one issue of The Kourier Magazine, a monthly Klan
periodical published in Atlanta, Georgia, contended that "the liquor
interests and the private citizens who are Vet in principle and in
practice' . . . seek to overturn American law and to destroy the Ameri-
can Constitution. Gov. Smith has made himself their leader. . . ."
As to Smith's affiliation with Tammany, in another issue of The
Kourier Magazine there appeared the following: "It is impossible to
conceive that any of the great Democratic leaders of the past would
consent to support such a man. Tilden, Cleveland, Bryan, Wilson —
all these men denounced and fought Tammany Hall. There is no
doubt that Jefferson and Jackson would have done the same if it had
WAR AGAINST AL SMITH 89
been what it is today. It is unthinkable that such men as these should
accept the leadership of a man who boasts of his membership in an
organization that has stood for graft, corruption, [and] alliance with
crime. ..."
Concerning Smith's "alienism," the pro-Klan newspaper, the Wash-
ington, D.C. Fellowship Forum, said to its readers: "Mr. Smith
represents a body of voters who do not believe in . . . American prin-
ciples and traditions; who wish another and a different set of ideas to
become dominant in the nation. These un-American ideas go under
the general title of alienism. Smith represents the attempt of alienism
to win control of America."
A startling aspect of the battle for the White House in 1928 was the
rabid attack upon Smith by a fellow Democrat — Senator J. Thomas
Heflin of Alabama. 4 Addressing a gathering of nearly 10,000 Knights
just outside Syracuse, New York, on June 16, 1928, Heflin vowed that
he would do all in his power to prevent the Governor's receiving the
nomination of the Democratic party in its forthcoming national con-
vention, for he did not want to see the presidency of the United States
"becoming the tail to the Roman Catholic late." Speaking at an open-
air meeting of the Klan in the outskirts of Albany, New York, on the
following day, the Senator asserted that it should be clear to everyone
Smith must be denied the highest office in the land because he was
a Catholic, a "soaking wet," and a Tammanyite.
Just three days before the Democratic convention began its proceed-
ings, Heflin announced that he would remain silent throughout the
campaign if the Governor of New York were nominated. But he failed
to keep his promise. In the months that followed the Senator ap-
peared before groups of Klansmen — in Ohio, in Illinois, in New
Jersey, in New York, in Kentucky, in Pennsylvania — to embolden
them in their opposition to Smith's candidacy.
During the course of the presidential race the question naturally
arose of whether Heflin was a Knight. In September of the preceding
year, in an address to the Lions Club of Mobile, C. M. Rogers, an
Alabama state legislator, had assailed Heflin as a member in good
standing of the Invisible Empire. That Rogers had been unable to
substantiate his charge was of no import to the many millions of Ameri-
cans who must have cared little about the distinction between Heflin's
being actually a member of the Klan and his being merely an exponent
of its tenets on the Senate floor and lecture platform. The issue of
Heflin's alleged Knighthood was finally settled, but not until 1937,
90 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
when Imperial Wizard Evans told the press that in the late 1920's the
Senator had indeed joined the secret order.
Smith did not take these blows from the Klan without striking back.
In an aggressive stumping of the nation, he scored the fraternity for
the tactics it was using against him in the campaign. Addressing a
group on September 20, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where Klanism
was still so deep-rooted and anti-Catholicism so widespread that his
personal safety was a concern, the Democratic candidate mentioned
that the following incident had recently come to light: The Grand
Dragon of the Realm of Arkansas, in a letter to a citizen of that state,
had urged Smith's defeat because of his religious faith, suggesting to
the man that by voting against the Governor he would be upholding
American ideals and institutions as established by the Founding Fa-
thers. As to that kind of politicking, Smith concluded, "Nothing could
be so out of line with the spirit of America. Nothing could be so
foreign to the teachings of Jefferson. Nothing could be so contradic-
tory to our whole history." A month later, on October 29, in Baltimore,
Maryland, the New Yorker told with emotion the following to his
audience:
"Recently I made a trip to the State of Indiana. I went there not
only as the candidate of the oldest political party in the country but as
the Governor of a sister Commonwealth. As we were passing along
in the train I saw in the darkness by the side of the track a blazing
cross, and one of the men in charge of the train told me that that was
symbolic of the Klan's defiance of me.
"There is a fine state of affairs in this twentieth century, with all of
our education and all of our culture. What excites in me the most of
my rage is the hollow mockery of it — to raise between heaven and
earth the emblem of Christianity as a defiance to a fellow-citizen, the
Executive of a great State.
"So far as I am concerned, I would sooner go down to ignominious
defeat than to be elected to any office in this country if to accomplish
it I had to have the support of any group with such perverted ideas of
Americanism."
Compared with the energetic campaign staged by Smith, the one
conducted by the Republican candidate was rather easy-going. Not
once did Hoover make express reference to the issue of the Klan's
participation in the presidential race. He did feel compelled, however,
to object to the attacks made upon Smith on religious grounds. In
his speech accepting the nomination, delivered at Stanford University,
WAR AGAINST AL SMITH 91
Hoover uttered, "By blood and conviction I stand for religious toler-
ance both in act and in spirit."
As had been so in 1924, the election was a Republican landslide.
Hoover won the electoral vote of forty states, including his opponent's
home state of New York, and five states — Virginia, Tennessee, North
Carolina, Florida, and Texas — of the half -century old "Solid South."
In popular votes, Hoover received 21,392,190 to Smith's 15,016,443.
It is not difficult to find the reasons for the outcome of the election.
To the negative factors involved in the defeat of the Democratic
nominee — the opposition to Smith because of his religion, his anti-
prohibitionism, his Tammany connections, and his "alienism" — must
be added the positive one of the belief on the part of many Americans
that the general prosperity of the times was dependent upon continued
Republican rule. 6
'It is difficult to assess the effect that the activity of the Klan had upon
the outcome of the election, for there were other influential organiza-
tions as well as prominent religious figures and bolting Democratic
leaders attacking Smith for one or more of the same reasons as were
given by the secret order for its opposition to the standard-bearer of
the Democratic party. Actively participating in the attempt to swing
certain of the traditionally Democratic states to Hoover were, for
example, such organizations as the Anti-Saloon League and the Wom-
an's Christian Temperance Union and such individuals as Bishop
James Cannon, Jr., of the Methodist Episcopal Church South; Dr.
Hugh K. Walker, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presby-
terian Church; Dr. John Roach Straton of New York's Calvary Baptist
Church; former Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma; and Senator
Furnifold McLendel Simmons of North Carolina.
And what is most difficult to determine is how an order that had
recently been censured by the American public for its excesses, an
order that had recently lost its formidable political potency, an order
that had recently experienced a drop in membership from over
4,000,000 to a few hundred thousand, in short, an order that was about
to collapse, could possibly play a decisive role in the presidential
election of 1928. If the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
was indeed a major factor in the desertion of almost half the "Solid
South" to the Republican candidate, then it was not the substance but
the spirit of the secret fraternity — that nebulous and elusive quality
— that made it so.
Chapter VIII
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE
At the end of 1928 the Ku Klux Klan did not expire; it merely laid
itself down to recover from two blows: a sharp loss of membership as
a result of popular disrepute at the height of its career, and exhaustion
of its rapidly diminishing energies in its opposition to Alfred E. Smith's
bid for the presidency. The Klan was never to regain the numerical
strength or influence it had before 1928.
Interestingly enough, it was the Klansmen outside the borders of
Dixie who during the 1930's tried to keep the fraternity from perishing.
Throughout the decade of depression Knights in the North preserved
ritual and customs via colorful ceremonies in lonely fields, blazing
crosses on mountain tops, and grim parades.
In September, 1930, in Peekskill, New York, in the southeastern
part of the state, a field day was attended by 500 hooded and robed
Klansmen from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsyl-
vania. Activities included a military drill, fireworks, and the burning
of a great "K" on a nearby hillside. The following July another field
day was held in the same town. Highlighting this affair was an ad-
dress by the Grand Klokard of the Realm of New York, M. D. L.
Van Over.
A thousand members of the Klan, about one-fourth of them in
regalia, gathered just outside of Somerville, New Jersey, in 1933, to
participate in an Easter sunrise service in the glow of a fiery cross.
Two years later, again near Somerville, 1,000 Knights assembled for
the same purpose.
Members of the order held a three-day outdoor convention in Peek-
skill in September, 1936. In their first public appearance in that area
in five years, the hooded and robed Klansmen conducted an initiation
ceremony, participated in athletic contests, listened to speeches by
their leaders, and set fire to a cross twenty feet high.
On the evening of October 1, 1937, the newest appointee to the
Supreme Court, former Senator Hugo L. Black of Alabama, made
a radio address to the nation in order to reply to charges levelled
against him of membership in the Klan. This touched off a spate
of fiery crosses in the North. In Worcester, Massachusetts; in Marl-
92
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 93
boro, fifteen miles to the northeast; in Hyde Park, New York, near
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's estate; in Mountain Lakes, New
Jersey, not too far from Newark, the night was momentarily ablaze
with that symbol which was everywhere and immediately associated
with the secret order. It should be noted that in each of these areas
it was generally believed that the local Klan had already been dis-
solved. Consequently, the crosses could have been burned by in-
dividuals not belonging to the fraternity. However, the setting fire to a
cross in the resort town of Mattituck, Long Island, in the summer of
1939, undoubtedly was the work of Klansmen; near the particular
cross was a sign that meant business: "Jews are not wanted in Mat-
tituck — K.K.K."
As for parading, Knights in regalia filed, for example, down the
streets of Freeport, Long Island, in July, 1930; nearby Valley Stream,
in September, 1931; Freeport again, in September, 1933. Sometimes
the desire to march went unfulfilled because of opposition from
community officials. In May, 1930, Klansmen from three counties in
southeastern New York — Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland — filed
application with the Board of Trustees of Mt. Kisco for permission to
take part in the town's Memorial Day Parade. The board handed
down a negative decision after the Memorial Day Committee along
with twelve civic and fraternal organizations in the area requested
that the Klan be barred from taking part in the march. In the fall of
1937 Kleagle William E. Cahill, after calling upon the city manager
of Toledo, Ohio, in regard to a proposed tri-state parade of the Klan
in that city, was told promptly that under no circumstances would a
permit be issued for a parade of hooded and robed persons.
I As in the 1920's, the practice of physically disciplining a wrongdoer
( either real or imagined ) was more prevalent among the Klansmen of
the South than among those of other sections of the country. Fol-
lowing are some illustrations of the secret order's participation in
"night-riding." In March, 1935, the manager of a hotel in St. Peters-
burg, Florida, Robert M. Cargell, was seized by five men, one of
whom was the local Kleagle, and driven to a deserted spot, where
he was horribly mutilated with a knife. In November, 1937, about
175 hooded and robed Klansmen swooped down on the La Paloma
night club in Miami, Florida, where they struck entertainers and
waiters, smashed furniture, compelled patrons to leave, and ordered
the place closed. In the summer of 1939 two residents of suburban
Atlanta, Georgia, were taken to a garbage dump where they were
beaten for "immorality." That fall, in nearby Decatur, a white pro-
94 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
prietor of a movie theater for Negroes was flogged by the local Klan
because it did not like his business operation. During the Christmas
season of 1939 a garage mechanic was dragged from his home in
Anderson, South Carolina, in the middle of the night and mercilessly
whipped because, his abductors said, he had slapped a child. On
March 2, 1940, a young man and girl from Atlanta, who were alleged
to have been violating the local Klan's conception of sexual morality,
were found beaten to death in a parked car in a local lovers' lane.
Less than a week later another resident of the city, a barber by the
name of Ike Gaston, was visited by hooded men who killed him with
a long cleated belt that was subsequently proved to have been made
by an avowed Klansman.
Two conclusions that have been presented previously in this study
regarding Klan violence bear restating at this point. Since the individ-
uals committing the outrages were hidden behind Klan regalia, they
could just as easily have not been members of the secret fraternity;
if the men who engaged in these offenses were Klansmen, they could
have been taking action without first obtaining the consent of the
local chapter as a whole.
fThe activities engaged in by the Klan during the 1930's, such as
conducting a ritual in a field outside of town, setting a huge cross
ablaze, parading silently down the street, or taking punitive measures
against wrongdoers could never check the longing of Knights to see
their fraternity become once again a conspicuous power in American
politics. The longing was never to be satisfied.
This does not mean, however, that in the years after 1928 the Klan
never popped up in a political setting. ; Alabama is a good case in
point. With his rabid attacks upon Alfred E. Smith before groups of
Klansmen during the 1928 presidential campaign, Senator J. Thomas
Heflin influenced 120,000 of the state's traditionally Democratic voters
to cast their ballots for Herbert Hoover in November. 1 Only because
of exhaustive toil on the part of Alabama's Democratic party organiza-
tion was Smith able to carry this commonwealth of the "Solid South"
— and by merely 7,000 votes. Heflin's term was to expire in 1931.
When he announced his intention of entering the 1930 Democratic sen-
atorial primary, the party avenged itself. The State Democratic Com-
mittee decreed that only candidates who had actively supported Smith
in the election of 1928 could run on the Democratic ticket. Because
he was barred from the primary, Heflin hoped to discomfit the party.
In order to accomplish this, he accepted both Klan and Republican
aid. An alliance of the bolting Heflin, the by then discredited Knights,
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 95
and the loathed Republicans could do no other than to consolidate
the Democratic party. John H. Bankhead, a corporation lawyer and
coal mine operator, won the race for the Democratic nomination for
the senatorship. In Alabama this was, of course, tantamount to victory
in the general election to follow.
When Hugo L. Black vacated his legislative seat in 1937 to settle
down on the judicial bench, Heflin struggled to occupy the former.
In the special Democratic senatorial primary held on January 4, 1938,
Lister Hill, Representative from the Second Congressional District of
Alabama, defeated Heflin, who had been permitted once again to run on
the ticket, by polling almost twice as many votes. The New York Times
reflected the viewpoint of most newspapers when it wrote of this
nearly two-to-one victory as follows: "Although the principles and
loyalties for which Mr. Hill stood and his own personal effectiveness as
a public man may be credited with the bulk of the support given him,
the decisive factor in his victory was obviously Heflinism, an unwilling-
ness on the part of many voters to identify themselves or their State
again with the racial and religious hatred and the Ku Kluxery for which
former Senator Heflin . . . stands in national sight." Heflin's down-
fall Was complete; he was never again to hold public office.
As for the Upper South, in the Maryland state election of 1938 the
religious issue played an important part. The voters were swamped
with anonymous letters attacking the Catholicism of the three top
candidates on the Democratic ticket, including Attorney-General
Herbert R. O'Conor, who was running for the governorship. Widely
circulated was The American Protestant, a newspaper published in
Washington, D. C, containing appeals to vote against the Catholic
office-seekers. The journal also declared frantically that out of forty-
two candidates in the city of Baltimore for the state Senate and House
of Delegates, more than three-fourths were Catholics. In 1928 the
Klan in Maryland had actively opposed Alfred E. Smith's presidential
candidacy. It was believed by numerous observers ten years later that
the secret order was just as involved in politics in 1938, for the anti-
Catholic campaign literature that was being circulated in that year
was more than coincidentally similar to that issued by the Klan in
Maryland in the past.
In New York City one of those entered in the September, 1938, open
primary in Kings County, which is coextensive with the Borough of
Brooklyn, was Louis Waldman. As the American Labor party candi-
date for a judgeship, Waldman announced that the Klan had flooded
the area with appeals to the people to vote against him. Seeking office
96 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
in a political district having an electorate composed quite largely of
Jews, Catholics, Negroes, and the foreign-born, Waldman attempted
to make the most of the hostility of the Klan, a hostility which,
of course, could not have been damaging in a place such as Brooklyn.
"I welcome the opposition of the K.K.K.," he said. "Their Americanism
isn't mine, and my principles and ideals are not theirs." Waldman
was, however, not victorious in the primary.
During the 1920's a great number of officeholders, in both the North
and the South, either allied themselves, or flirted, with the Klan. In
the 1930's few public officials dared to be friendly toward the order.
Three southern states— South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida— composed
a contiguous territory in which this was not the case. By 1939, for
example: in Greenville, South Carolina, nearly every member of the
police force was conceded to be a Klansman; the acting sheriff of
Anderson County, South Carolina, which is situated in the northwestern
part of the state, was an avowed Knight; three deputy sheriffs of
Fulton County, Georgia, admitted to membership in the secret frater-
nity; in Orlando, Florida, Klan parades were frequently honored by an
escort of police; in Tampa and Miami, city officials, both elected and
appointed, were on intimate terms with representatives of the order.
In the decade and a half following 1928 there kept cropping up
against well-known political figures accusations of former Klan affilia-
tion. In each instance the secret order itself played a quite passive
role. The most celebrated case is the one that "broke" in 1937. On
August 12 of that year, a message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt
was delivered to the Senate. It read: "I nominate [Senator] Hugo L.
Black of Alabama to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of
the United States." To a request made for unanimous consent to
consider the message at once, there was objection, shattering a custom
of the Upper House to confirm without reference to committee the
nomination of any of its members to any office. A hearing had to be
held; Black was, in the end, approved by the Senate. On October 4,
the Alabaman took his place on the bench. His first official act as an
Associate Justice was to hear motions contesting his right to the office.
Demands were made that the House of Representatives impeach
Justice Black and that the Senate try and convict him. All this over
current rumors linking Black with the Invisible Empire, Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan.
The full case against Black was not made known until after the
Senate had confirmed his nomination. The facts were set forth in a
series of six articles written by Ray Sprigle and published in the
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 97
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette beginning September 13, 1937 . 2 Using as evi-
dence attestations by affidavit of former Knights who were witnesses
to certain Klan functions, photostatic reproductions of official and
hitherto secret Klan records, and stenographic notes taken by A. B.
Hale, a then official reporter of the order, Sprigle related the following
regarding the newly-appointed Justice: He had joined the Robert E.
Lee Klan No. 1, Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, in
Birmingham on September 11, 1923. On July 9, 1925, before beginning
his race for the Democratic nomination for the United States senator-
ship, he formally resigned from the order upon the suggestion of Klan
officials, so that he could campaign with all the advantages of Klan
support but without any of the disadvantages of having to admit to
Klan membership if challenged on that score during the 1926 primary.
On September 2, 1926, after gaining the nomination, 8 which is tanta-
mount to winning the election in Democratic Alabama, Black was
welcomed back to the secret fraternity at a "Klorero" (state meeting)
in Birmingham, at which time he received a gold "grand passport"
(life membership card) in the Klan.
In attendance at the Klorero were about 2,000 Knights, including
Imperial Wizard Evans, Grand Dragon James Esdale of the Realm of
Alabama, Great Titans from three Provinces, and Exalted Cyclopses
from fifty local Klans. After some minutes of good-humored allusions
by Klan officials to Black's success in the recently held primary, the
Senator-nominate was brought to the speaker's stand amid great ap-
plause to be given the gold-engraved certificate of life membership in
the secret fraternity. In his speech accepting the grand passport, Black
expressed his full sympathy with the principles of the Klan, and asked
for the counsel of the organization when he assumed his new political
post. As to his winning the senatorial nomination, he attributed it to
Klan backing. "I do not feel that it would be out of place to state to
you here on this occasion that I know that without the support of the
members of this organization I would have not been called ... [as so
introduced] the 'Junior Senator from Alabama.' "
Two and a half weeks after the initial Sprigle article appeared Black
made his first and only comment on the charge levelled against him
of Klan affiliation. On the evening of October 1, 1937, he delivered a
short address over the radio, in which he said:
"... I joined the Ku Klux Klan about fifteen years ago ... I later
resigned. I never re-joined. What appeared then or what appears now
on the records of the organization I do not know.
"I never have considered and I do not now consider the unsolicited
98 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
card given to me shortly after my nomination to the Senate as a mem-
bership of any kind in the Ku Klux Klan. I never used it. I did not
even keep it."
When the Justice bid goodnight to those who had been listening to
him, he ended an episode that was indeed unique in the history of
American political life.*
Hugo L. Black was not the only politician of Alabama honored at
the Klorero in Birmingham on September 2, 1926. According to the
Sprigle articles, at this state meeting of the Invisible Empire, Colonel
Bibb Graves of Montgomery, 6 the then Democratic nominee for the
governorship, was also presented with a grand passport, which he
accepted with a short address expressing gratitude for the Klan's sup-
port in the recently held primary, 6 pledging loyalty to Klan principles,
and requesting Klan advice in the discharge of his new public duties.
The Governor-nominate's peroration is of especial interest: "... every
real enemy of Klancraft throughout the State and this country would
really delight in seeing a Cyclops-Governor the greatest failure in
American history. The Klan is on trial; it is not Bibb Graves but it
is the Ku Klux Klan that stands on trial, not only in Alabama but
throughout America." 7
At the height of the Black affair in 1937 Graves, by then serving a
second term as Governor of Alabama, in an interview with a New York
Times reporter, admitted attending, as a Knight, the Klorero on
September 2, 1926. He admitted, also, receiving on that occasion what
he referred to as "some kind of badge," but added that he had never
attached any great importance to that award. Graves pooh-poohed
the suggestion by the newspaperman that he still had the status of a
Knight in view of the nature of the grand passport as a symbol of life
membership. He emphasized that when he became Governor in 1927,
he disassociated himself from the order, not by writing a letter of resig-
nation, but by merely "dropping out" through the non-payment of dues
and the non-attendance of meetings.
But to other cases. In August, 1938, while he was seeking a second
term as Senator from California, William G. McAdoo was charged
with holding life membership in the Klan. The accusation was made
by Peirson Hall, campaign manager for McAdoo's Republican op-
ponent for the senatorship, Sheridan Downey. In Hall's possession
was the grand passport allegedly given McAdoo by the secret fraternity;
how he himself obtained possession of the life membership card Hall
would not say. Dog-eared and hardly decipherable, the gold-engraved
certificate read:
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 99
"To All Exalted Cyclops, Greetings:
"The bearer, Kl. William G. McAdoo, whose signature and present
address is on the [the printing is here obliterated], is a citizen of the
Invisible Empire, and to him is given this Imperial Passport that he may
travel throughout our beneficent domain and grant and have the fervent
fellowship of Klansmen. By this authority you will pass him through
the portals of your Klaverns to meet with Klansmen in Konklave
assembled.
"Signed and sealed this twenty-ninth day of February, 1924, by His
Lordship, H. W. Evans, Imperial Wizard and Imperial Cyclops."
To Hall's accusation McAdoo- replied that any statement that he was
or ever had been a member of the Klan was "utterly and wantonly
false." As to the grand passport specifically, the Californian said,
"Any purported certificate issued to me by the Klan must be a forgery,
as I have never had any such certificate and have never seen one." Con-
tacted in Atlanta, where the Klan had re-established its na-
tional headquarters after having transferred them to Washington,
D. C, in 1928, Imperial Wizard Evans told the press that he had no
knowledge of McAdoo's ever having been a Knight, and that he, as
the head of the order, had never signed a life membership card for the
politician. That McAdoo failed to be re-elected to the Upper House
in 1938 is a matter of public record; that the charge of Klan affiliation
was responsible for the defeat is not.
Two aspects of the affair must be brought to light. First, before
becoming chief strategist for Senator McAdoo's political enemy, Hall
had tried unsuccessfully to obtain a quite necessary recommendation
from the Senator for reappointment as United States Attorney. Second,
the internal evidence of the alleged grand passport forces the serious
student of the Klan to deem it non-genuine. No Knight would ever
omit the "1" in the first syllable of the word "Klonklave," or refer to
the Imperial Wizard as "His Lordship" or "Imperial Cyclops."
In June, 1944, the Republican national committeeman from Indiana
was denounced by a member of his own party as having been an active
Klansman in the 1920's under Grand Dragon David Curtis Stephenson
of the Realm of Indiana. The accused was Robert W. Lyons, a million-
aire lawyer and chain-store lobbyist. After being subjected to two
weeks of bitter criticism, against which he did not choose to defend
himself, Lyons resigned from his political post.
That fall two candidates for public office were charged with former
membership in the Klan. The first one admitted to it; he happened to
be defeated. On October 23, 1944, the Democratic nominee for the
J 00 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
House of Representatives from the Fifteenth Congressional District of
California, Hal Styles, announced that he had joined the Klan in 1926,
but that four years later he purged himself by writing a series of articles
exposing the order and holding it up to public condemnation. Styles,
however, did not remain on the defensive. He asserted that his Re-
publican opponent, out of desperation for office, finally had had to re-
sort to waging a smear campaign.
The second candidate denied the charge of past membership in the
secret fraternity; he was elected. On October 26, 1944, at a press
conference held in Peoria, Illinois, the Democratic nominee for the
vice-presidency, Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, commented in
detail on the story currently being circulated that he was a former
Klansman. After he dismissed the account as a "he" which had been
"nailed" in 1922, when he successfully ran for the judgeship of the
County Court for the Eastern District of Jackson, Missouri, Truman
went on to emphasize that the order had always fought him in his
home state. At a meeting of the Grand Lodge of Masons in September,
1921, in St. Louis, he had worked in behalf of a resolution to expel any
lodge member who had joined the Klan, he added. The Senator as-
serted that he had never attended a Klan gathering. "If I had shown
up at a meeting," he quipped, "the Klan would have pulled me apart."
The most the secret fraternity was capable of doing politically during
the 1930's was to prevent, ever so often, Negroes in southern com-
munities from exercizing the franchise. For example, in Starke,
Florida, near the Georgia border, on the night before the municipal
election of September 13, 1938, hooded and robed Klansmen visited the
Negro section of town, where they burned two crosses and left notes
warning the colored population to "stay out of Bradford County
politics or take the consequences." In Miami, on the night before the
Democratic primary of May 2, 1939, Knights in regalia filled about fifty
automobiles, the license plates of which were shielded, and drove
through the Negro section of the city, tossing out cards marked "K. K.
K." in red and bearing the legend: "Respectable Negro citizens are
not voting tomorrow. Niggers stay away from the polls." Before the
Klansmen withdrew, they had set fire to twenty-five crosses along the
railroad tracks.
/ There is a difference between the success of Klan intimidation of
the Negro electorate in the 1920's and that in the 1930's that begs for
emphasis. In the latter decade the demonstrations of the secret order
failed to prevent the Negro community as a whole from showing up at
the polls. I As a matter of fact, in the Miami Democratic primary of
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 101
May 2, 1939, the colored population ignored the warning issued by
the Klan to cast a record vote.
J Initiation ceremonies, field days, Easter sunrise services, setting
crosses ablaze, parades, "night-riding," intimidation of the Negro
electorate — these things kept the Klan merely alive during the 1930's.
Imperial Wizard Evans, now somewhat jowlier and a great deal
paunchier, must have racked his brains over the proper approach to be
used in order to regain for his fraternity the tremendous influence,
both social and political, that it had enjoyed in the previous decade.
Times do change! To make a comeback perhaps it was necessary to
add to the original creed of the secret order. In the early summer of
1934 Evans took that step when he announced:
"Public-spirited people, klansmen and non-members alike, realize
that this nation is in great danger. Because of its record of heroic
achievement, the Klan has been called upon by them to mobilize . . .
"Klansmen in action, competent and courageous, will lead the Ameri-
can people to see that individual liberty and Constitutional Government
shall not perish and that this nation be no longer the victim of alien
propaganda."
What was the substance of the alien propaganda against which a
revived Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was to be a
bulwark? It was Communism. Taking its place in the mid-1930's
alongside the established beliefs of the fraternity — white supremacy,
anti-Semitism, anti-foreign-bornism, anti-Catholicism, "pure" American-
ism, Protestantism and strict morality— was the new tenet of anti-Com-
munism.
A post- World War II leader of the Klan, Dr. Samuel J. Green, was
wont to iterate that it was his order which first "discovered" Com-
munism in the United States and which first assailed it — in the year
1929. "Congressmen laughed at us from the start," he once chided. As
to historicity, Green's contention leaves everything to be desired. Be
that as it may, from the very beginning of the 1930's Klansmen despised
American Communists because of their efforts to court Negroes with
proffers of economic advancement and racial equality. In March,
1931, fourteen armed Knights abducted and flogged two Communist
organizers in Dallas, Texas, for making speeches against Jim Crow
laws and the widespread lynching of Negroes. In downtown Bir-
mingham, Alabama, on a late afternoon in November, 1932, Negroes
were showered by paper pamphlets tossed from a building by members
of the local Klan. The message read: "Negroes of Birmingham, the
Klan is watching you. Tell the Communists to get out of town.
102 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
They mean only trouble for you, for Alabama is a good place for
good Negroes and a bad place for Negroes who believe in racial
equality. Report Communistic activities to the Ku Klux Klan, Box 661,
Birmingham."
In the next few years Klan leaders consciously de-emphasized the
anti-Negroism, anti-Semitism, anti-foreign-bornism, and anti-Catholi-
cism of their fraternity. And it was made quite clear to the nation that
the new crusade of the organization was aimed at Communism.
Klan oratory in New York illustrates well the point. On September 4,
1933, the order ended a three-day convention on a vacant lot in Free-
port, Long Island, with platform appearances of hooded and robed
speakers expounding on the importance of Klan success in arousing the
American people to the menace of Communism. The following Sep-
tember, after three years of inactivity, the local chapter in Westchester
County held a reorganization meeting. A Kleagle who had arrived in
an automobile bearing a Rhode Island license plate told his fellow
Knights: "The Klan is needed now, particularly in this section of the
country, so that we can give back to the American people the funda-
mental rights conveyed by the Constitution. Communism must be
stamped out. The New Deal has become communistic and I feel cer-
tain that the American public will rise in protest and soundly defeat
President Roosevelt at the next general election."
Speaking to about 75 of his charges for more than an hour on Sep-
tember 5, 1936, the Grand Dragon of the Realm of New York, H. W.
Garing, asserted repeatedly that their order was not in the least anti-
Negro, anti-Catholic, or anti-Semitic, but was in every respect anti-
Communistic.
In the Middle West a drive was under way in the fall of 1937 to
revive the Klan in the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. As part
of the program for resuscitation, letters were sent out by Kleagles
summoning back all former Knights. Across the bottom of these epistles
were five words: "Communism Will Not Be Tolerated."
The unprecedented growth during the 1920's of various mass produc-
tion enterprises, such as the automobile industry, had made it necessary
for skilled and unskilled workers to toil under the same roof. The latter
were denied membership in the American Federation of Labor which
was limited to skilled workers in a particular trade. IWhen, in 1935,
certain labor leaders, led by John L. Lewis of the United Mine
Workers, failed to convince the American Federation of Labor that un-
skilled workers should be permitted to join its ranks, ten unions with-
in the federation formed the Committee for Industrial Organization.
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 703
Its goal was to organize all workers in the mass production industries.
Three years later the Committee for Industrial Organization completely
severed itself from the American Federation of Labor, changing its
title to the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The heads of the Committee for Industrial Organization quickly
discovered that Communists would be quite helpful in their attempt
to organize the mass production industries. Of course, labor leaders
had from the very beginning decided merely to "use" the Communists,
and they dropped them just as soon as Communist tactics were deemed
no longer necessary. 8 The Committee for Industrial Organization was
thus grist for the Klan mill.
While Akron, Ohio, was experiencing a period of anxiety in 1936
due to a "sit-down"strike in the local B. F. Goodrich tire plant, Kleagles
successfully "worked" the city for new members. Even after the
industrial dispute was resolved with the return to work of 10,000 em-
ployees in late September, Akron's labor relations were to remain un-
settled, for the newly reactivated local Klan began a crusade against
Communism, which was in reality directed against labor unions in
general and the Committee for Industrial Organization in particular.
In the early summer of 1937 Imperial Wizard Evans moved his offices
from rural Roswell Road, about ten miles outside of Atlanta, to the
heart of the city. It is strongly noncoincidental that Evans' change of
headquarters took place at the same time that the Steel Workers Organi-
zing Committee and the Textile Workers Organizing Committee, both
affiliates of the Committee for Industrial Organization, began their
joint campaigns of unionizing laborers in the southeastern part of the
nation. Soon after the Texile Workers Organizing Committee started
operations, its organizers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Columbus, Geor-
gia, and other smaller southern cities, found crosses burning in the
night in the immediate vicinity of their residences. In Greenville,
South Carolina, an active center of the textile industry, within a week
after the Textile Workers Organizing Committee began its cam-
paign, there appeared tacked onto telephone poles and billboards
hundreds of cards carrying this message:
"C. I. O. is Communism
Communism
Will Not Be Tolerated
Ku Klux Klan
Rides Again"
704 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
On July 11, 1937, the Imperial Wizard declared that the Committee
for Industrial Organization was "infested" with Communists. Referring
to the current labor strife in the nation, Evans said, "The Klan will not
sit idly by and allow the C. I. O. to destroy our social order, nor
shall the C. I. O. flout law and promote social disorder without swift
punishment." Two weeks later an announcement was issued from
Evans' headquarters that the Klan would hold a series of demonstra-
tions throughout the nation as a protest against "alien labor agitation."
The first of these public displays took place in Atlanta on July 31, 1937,
when Klansmen living in or near that city paraded in full regalia behind
a fiery cross.
In 1937, while on a murder trial assignment in Tampa, Florida, a
New York Times correspondent took time out to talk to many repre-
sentative inhabitants of the area regarding the part the Klan had played
in southern life. One of those interviewed was a middle-aged successful
attorney in Bartow, forty miles southeast of Tampa, who took vehement
issue with what he considered to be the standard thinking in the
North on the Klan — that the order would never again be an active,
effective one. Maintaining that his views were those of the great
majority of the substantial citizens of southern small towns, the lawyer
said, "Down here, we, who have heard John L. Lewis' promise to
unionize all labor, know the Klan will be in the spotlight for a long time
to come. When the C. I. O. comes here, as it promises to do, the Klan
will start up all over again."
The foresight of the southern small town lawyer and the hindsight
of organizers for the Congress of Industrial Organizations two years
later were completely compatible. Delegates to the convention of the
Texile Workers Union of America, in Philadelphia, in May, 1939
were told by organizers that a primary reason why the "No. 1 task" of
full and complete unionization of all southern textile workers was still
unfinished was the vicious hostility of a revived Klan.
The secret fraternity, however, was not able to resuscitate during
the mid-1930's — not even as the clamorously self-advertised bulwark
against Communism and the unionization of the mass production in-
dustries by leftist labor leaders. The reason appears to be twofold.
First, during the depression years whatever money a man was able to
acquire was used for the basic necessities of life. One's wife and
children had to be provided with some food, some clothing, some kind
of shelter. Nothing was left over to accumulate into $10 for the Klec-
token or into $5 for the regalia, let alone into the sum demanded
regularly by the local chapter as dues. In early 1934 the Memphis
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 105
Commercial- Appeal editorialized that although the Klan prospered
during the post- World War I period of "economic abandon," values
had changed since then. "Even fraternities of ancient establishment
have found it difficult to survive. 'J mers ' have been conspicuous by
their absence since 1929. They'll still be absent when the hooded
Atlantans try to meet again in the groves." The years were to prove
right this southern newspaper.
Second, other organizations came into being during the mid-1930's
which had ideologies that immediately captured the allegiance of
millions of Americans who would ordinarily have been excellent pros-
pects for the Kleagle. !Dr. Francis E. Townsend of California launched
the Old Age Revolving Pension plan to return the nation to general
prosperity by paying $200 per month to every individual over sixty
years old with the requirement that the entire sum be spent before the
next $200 was obtained. In 1935, the Pacific coast physician claimed
5,000,000 followers. In the spring of that year Senator Huey P. Long
of Louisiana announced his Share the Wealth program which involved
the federal government's guaranteeing every family in the nation an
annual income of at least $5,000. Clubs were organized by the Sena-
tor in many states to work actively in behalf of his scheme. Then
there were the new "hate" groups, such as William Dudley Pelley's
Silver Shirt Legion of America, and the Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith's
Committee of One Million.
On January 16, 1939, Imperial Wizard Evans astounded the country
by accepting the invitation of Bishop Gerald P. O'Hara of the Savannah-
Atlanta Catholic Diocese to attend the dedication ceremonies for
Atlanta's new Cathedral of Christ the King. ( The edifice was built on
the site of the first national Klan headquarters. After the Klan had
established a new headquarters in Washington, D. C, in 1928, it sold
the property to an insurance company, which in turn sold it to the
Diocese.) Further, Evans consented to appearance in the press of a
photograph of himself standing cordially next to Bishop O'Hara and
Denis Cardinal Dougherty of Philadelphia, who was also in attendance
at the dedication ceremonies for the cathedral. A leading Methodist
minister in Atlanta, the Rev. Walter Holcomb, surely spoke for
millions of Americans when he characterized the entire incident as
"one of the greatest triumphs over intolerance that I have ever seen."
Evans' deed is the most notable illustration of the Klan's abandon-
ment, whether actual or ostensible, of religio-racial antipathies for the
sake of its new crusade against Communism and the Committee for
Industrial Organization. The actions of the Imperial Wizard of the
706 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Ku Klux Klan were always to be given proper respect throughout each
and every division of the Invisible Empire. Evans discovered, however,
that while he had been in attendance at the dedication ceremonies
for the cathedral, he had been acting for himself, not for Klansmen
throughout the nation. Whether his decision to publicly congregate
with members of the Catholic hierarchy had stemmed from sincerity
or artfulness made little or no difference; his action had been too ex-
treme for Klandom.
A few months later, on June 10, at a Klonvokation in Atlanta attend-
ed by Knights from thirty states, Evans relinquished the post he had
held for nearly two decades. He stoutly denied that there was any
internal dissension in the order over policy in general or over his at-
tendance at the dedication ceremonies in particular; he maintained
that at the time he had been re-elected Imperial Wizard in 1935, he
had decided that he would not be a candidate to succeed himself.
Acceding to the Imperial Wizardship was James A. Colescott, a
stocky, bespectacled forty-two year old former veterinarian from Terre
Haute, Indiana. 8 Active in the secret order since 1923, Dr. Colescott
had served it as Grand Dragon of the Realm of Ohio, later as liaison
officer between national headquarters and local Klans in Pennsylvania,
Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, and Texas, and for the past two years
as Evans' personal and chief assistant in Atlanta.
In his first public announcement after taking office, Colescott
promised that the interests of the "native-born, white, Protestant gen-
tile" population of the country would be promoted by an "administra-
tion of action." The new Imperial Wizard tried to keep his troth with
his fellow Knights. Under Colescott the anti-Negroism, anti-Semitism
anti-foreign-bornism, and anti-Catholicism of the twentieth century
Klan were no longer soft-pedaled; the original creed of the order was
ardently reaffirmed.
As for an "administration of action," during Colescott's first half
dozen months as head of the Invisible Empire, a record of considerable
growth and development was established. Membership lists of the
1920's were retrieved from the files and used as a basis for intensive
recruitment operations. Kleagles were trained in the South during
the winter of 1939-1940 to "work" the Middle West the following
spring. The Imperial Wizard himself canvassed the Atlantic coast for
new Knights. Crosses were set ablaze in, for example, Yonkers, New
York; Roselle, New Jersey, south of Newark; Uniontown, Pennsylvania;
Baltimore, Maryland; Muncie, Indiana; Ferndale, Michigan, just out-
side of Detroit; and in several towns in Georgia, Florida, and California.
DISREPUTE AND DECLINE 107
Local Klans were set up in such important cities as Providence, Rhode
Island; Schenectady, New York; Jersey City, New Jersey; Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania; Cincinnati, Ohio; Urbana, Illinois; and Kansas City,
Missouri. The factory making the official Klan regalia speeded up
production of the costume, which was reduced from the long establish-
ed original price of $5 to $3. National Klan headquarters was re-
furbished and enlarged.
Obviously anticipating widespread antipathy toward a reactivated
Klan, the Imperial Wizard on April 17, 1940, issued an edict forbidding
the wearing of the hood at any time and restricting the burning of
crosses to formal ceremonies.
Colescott boasted that during the first year of his rule Klan member-
ship increased by 50 per cent, that by the summer of 1940 there were
500,000 Knights in thirty-nine states. Estimates by contemporary re-
porters of the organization, however, put membership closer to 200,000.
Whatever the numerical strength of the Klan was in 1940, it can be
said with certainty that two out of every three Knights was a
Southerner.
Colescott's program of expansion was abruptly and decisively cut
short by a force quite outside his reach — World War II. Through two
separate acts, the first shortly before, and the second soon after,
American entry into the war, the Klan hoped to prove to the nation its
basic patriotism. In October, 1941, it was reported that the fraternity
was printing the slogan "Buy a Share in America — Buy Savings Bonds"
on the application forms it sent to prospective members. In January,
1942, it was announced from national headquarters that "in keeping
with its policy of Americanism," the order had withdrawn from circu-
lation after the declaration of war against Japan, "all" its pamphlets
"of a controversial nature."
Then, Klan activity virtually ceased. From 1942 to 1945, those
few Americans who for one reason or another happened to be interested
in news of the secret order searched their daily papers fruitlessly for
months at a time for an article on, or a report of, the Klan; those many
Americans who happened not to be interested read in their daily papers
of. world-wide hostilities and their concomitant miseries — and quickly
forgot about the Klan.
Chapter IX
A SPLINTERED BODY
In November, 1944, Dr. H. Scudder Mekeel, Associate Professor
of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, warned those gathered
before him for the annual meeting of the National Committee for Men-
tal Hygiene that there was a real possibility that the conclusion of the
war currently being waged against Germany and Japan would be
followed by a revival "in full force" of the Ku Klux Klan.
Seven months before Mekeel made his remarks, the secret order had
officially dissolved itself. Being hounded by the Bureau of Internal
Revenue for not having paid past taxes amounting to $685,305, the
Klan held a Klonvokation in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 23, 1944, at
which the hierarchy of Knights assembled "repealed all decrees,
vacated all offices, voided all charters, and relieved every klansman of
any obligation whatever." Imperial Wizard Colescott was consequently
released from the post he had held for a half dozen years. It was thus
hoped that any entanglement with the federal government over
tax suits would be avoided.
But this did not mean the dissolution of the Klan in actuality. At
the same Klonvokation it was decided to establish an "informal, unin-
corporated" alliance of the local chapters of the fraternity operating
in the state of Georgia. Chosen to lead the newly organized Association
of Georgia Klans with the title of Grand Dragon was Dr. Samuel J.
Green, a toothbrush-mustachioed, bespectacled fifty-four year old
obstetrician from Atlanta. The physician had been an active Knight
since 1922. 1 While disclaiming a legal relationship between the In-
visible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the Association of
Georgia Klans, Dr. Green made no secret that the latter would perpetu-
ate the philosophy, ritual, and methods of operation of its inactive fore-
bear.
Associate Professor Mekeel had been perceptive. Retired from
sight during World War II, the Klan appeared on the American scene
soon after hostilities ceased. Frequently, from the fall of 1945 to the
spring of 1946, huge fiery crosses on top of Stone Mountain, outside of
Atlanta, lighted up the night. It was here on May 9, 1946, that the
secret fraternity conducted its first large postwar initiation ceremony.
708
A SPLINTERED BODY 109
The public had been invited through advertisements in the press. The
approximately 2,000 who responded saw more than 200 individuals
kneel before Grand Dragon Green to take a sacred oath of allegiance
to the order. Exulted Green, "We are revived."
The membership of the Klan in Georgia was estimated in the
middle of 1946 to be between 40,000 and 50,000, about half of which
was centered in Atlanta. By 1949 the fraternity had achieved its goal of
an active local Klan in each of the 159 counties of the state. Green
announced that he was receiving from all over the nation requests for
the formation of chapters, usually from groups with a starting strength
of 100.
/ Very quickly the revived fraternity gained political influence in
Georgia. * In 1946, in his bid for a fourth term as Governor of the
Empire State of the South, Eugene Talmadge publicly declared he
would welcome along with the support of all other white inhabitants
the backing of Klansmen. After the Democratic gubernatorial primary
of July 17, Grand Dragon Green was wont to boast that by the most in-
tensive activity the order had contributed 100,000 votes to Talmadge,
thus assuring him the nomination of his party. In solidly Democratic
Georgia, Talmadge, of course, went on to victory over his Republican
opponent in the general election that followed. Before he could take
office, however, he died. In 1949 his son Herman acceded to the
governorship. In June of that year Green announced that he was a
member of Governor Herman Talmadge's personal staff. In Green's
office in Atlanta a newspaper reporter had indeed spotted what ap-
peared to be a framed commission designating Green as a lieutenant
colonel and aide-de-camp to the Governor and bearing Talmadge's
name. When the Chief Executive was asked whether the Grand Dra-
gon was a staff member, he replied simply, "I don't know."
In a host of southern cities outside the boundaries of Georgia, in-
cluding Knoxville, Tennessee, Key West, Florida, and Birmingham,
Alabama, Knights were holding regular meetings. In Birmingham, for
example, there were four chapters of the Klan, with a total membership
of 1,000. In and around that city on a single spring night in 1946 eight
crosses were set ablaze.
The Klan was making headway in the North, too. On March 21,
1946, fiery crosses appeared in Flint, Michigan, after it was announced
that a Negro would be a candidate for a municipal post. Some weeks
later crosses were burned near the home of a Negro in Los Angeles,
California, in a field north of that city, and in front of a house belong-
ing to a Jewish fraternity on the campus of the University of Southern
J JO THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
California. In the fall of 1946, the King Kleagle of Indiana, Harold
Overton, told the press that the Klan in the Hoosier State had recruiters
at work in sixty of the ninety-two counties, was processing 121,000
application forms, and was engaged in setting up its headquarters in
Muncie.
Resurgence was met by resistance. The vast majority of Ameri-
cans, including those south of the Mason-Dixon line, shuddered at the
revival of the Klan. In the post- World War I period most individuals
who were repelled by Klanism decided against voicing their feelings
because of the real possibility of extremist counter-measures on the
part of the powerful secret order. This was not the case after World
War II. \ Vigorous opposition to the Klan came from many quarters —
independent citizens acting in concert, veterans groups, church associa-
tions, and government bodies.
On September 14, 1946, leaders of the nation's Negroes meeting in
Los Angeles started a campaign to acquire a million signatures on a
petition to outlaw the Klan. Citizens of Macon, Georgia, who were
very much concerned over periodic outbursts of Klan activity banded
together in 1948 to agitate for the enactment of a municipal ordinance
prohibiting the masking of one's face in public. In December, 1948,
a cross was set ablaze in front of the home of Jere Moore, the anti-Klan
editor of the Milledgeville, Georgia Union Recorder. After Moore
retaliated with an editorial accusing the secret order of threatening
freedom of the press, ten influential citizens of the town put up a
$1,000 reward for the apprehension of the cross-burners.
At the closing session of a convention of the Jewish War Veterans in
Liberty, New York, in June, 1946, a resolution was adopted condemning
the Klan and requesting that the federal government determine to
what extent the order was violating the law. Some months later those
attending the annual convention of the New Jersey branch of the
American Legion censured the secret fraternity and called upon the
governor and his staff to do all in their power to prevent any such
organization from operating in the Garden State. In 1949 Klan
terrorism in Alabama aroused the wrath of American Legionnaires in
that commonwealth to the extent that they officially determined to
"put an end" to such lawlessness. Soon after, 500 militant members
of the Georgia branch of the American Legion banded together to
back up law enforcement in all matters pertaining to the Klan.
In the resistance to postwar Klanism various Protestant church organi-
zations took a big lead. This, of course, did an immense amount of
good for the anti-Klan movement, since Protestants were not expected
A SPLINTERED BODY 111
to be as resolute in their opposition to the secret order as the racial,
religious, or ethnic groups against which it railed. In the fall of 1947
the Presbyterian Synod of New York adopted a committee report de-
ploring the revival of the fraternity. The following summer, Presby-
terian leaders from all of the southern states meeting in Montreat,
North Carolina, labeled Klanism "definitely akin to fascism" and called
on the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities
to investigate the order.
Other church groups were not to be outdone by their Presbyterian
brethren. The South Carolina Baptist Convention resolved to fight
the Klan, calling it "an unnecessary organization totally at variance
with our Christian and democratic way of life"; the association of
Methodist ministers in Atlanta adopted a resolution denouncing the
fraternity as a "cowardly anti-Christian mob."
In the late 1940's there were incidents of Knights in regalia interrupt-
ing church services in order to present the minister with an envelope
containing money. Such Klan benevolence was quite common during
the 1920's and went uncriticized officially by Protestant spokesmen
in high position. This was not so two decades later. Dr. Hugh A.
Brimm, Executive Secretary of the Social Service Commission of the
Southern Baptist Convention, on January 28, 1949, requested all pastors
in his denomination to do the following in case their services were
interrupted by Klansmen bearing cash gifts:
"( 1 ) Keep cool — no one should be afraid of cowards who won't show
their faces.
"(2) Remember that superficial piety is hypocrisy before God and
man. These men cannot wash the blood stains of lynched victims
from their skirts by merely walking into a church with Tjlood money.'
"( 3 ) Refuse any gifts and invite them to stay only if they remove their
masks. If they refuse to unhood themselves, then dismiss the service
with a prayer for them that they might see the light of God's love
for all men and themselves come to love all men."
' The most telling blow to Klanism in the post-World War II period
was delivered by government on all three levels — federal, state, and
local. In the spring of 1946 an investigator for the House of Repre-
sentatives Committee on Un-American Activities was to travel to Atlan-
ta, Georgia, for an on-the-spot search into the resurgence of the Klan.
It was suggested by one spokesman for the committee that the inquiry
might be extended to California, where the order was periodically
bestirring itself.
Soon after, Assistant Attorney-General T. Lamar Caudle announced
7 72 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
that government agents were looking into reports that the German-
American Bund was reviving and had recently formed an alliance
with the Klan. To bolster his charge that the two organizations had
collaborated prior to World War II, Caudle declared that he possessed
documentary evidence to show the following: in 1937 a leader of
the Bund said that his group was co-operating with the Klan, since the
aims of the two were "similar in many ways"; in that same year the
two bodies considered forming an anti-labor third party; on August 18,
1940, the Bund and the Klan held a joint outdoor rally at the former's
Camp Nordland, situated in the northwestern part of New Jersey.
In May, 1946, after condemning the revived Klan, Attorney-General
Tom C. Clark declared that all the laws at his command would be used
to stamp out any organization that was steeped in bigotry. Some
weeks later Clark revealed that the activities of the secret fraternity
in seven states — Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, New York,
Michigan, and California — were being examined by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation to ascertain whether any federal laws were being
broken. In December, 1947, the Klan was listed by the Attorney-
General, along with ninety-five other groups, as being disloyal to the
nation.
The representatives of state government eagerly took up the cudgels
against the secret fraternity. As soon as the Attorney-General of
California, Robert W. Kenney, had finished parading a throng of former
Knights before Superior Judge Alfred A. Paonessa to prove his con-
tention that the Klan "taught racial hatred through violence and inti-
midation," the jurist revoked the California charter of the order and
denied it the right to obtain a new permit in that state. Paonessa's
action was taken on May 21, 1946, in Los Angeles.
After California prohibited the Klan from operating within its bound-
aries, other states quickly did the same. On the application of New
York's Attorney-General, State Supreme Court Justice Joseph A.
Gavagan, in July, 1946, signed an order revoking the state charter of the
Klan and dissolving the organization. Anyone who atempted to sus-
tain the life of the secret fraternity in the Empire State faced a fine
of $10,000 and imprisonment up to six months.
Later that summer Kentucky took legal action. The Attorney-
General filed suit to have the Klan's corporate rights in the state revoked,
charging that the fraternity persecuted certain citizens because of
their racial or religious background, after which Judge William B.
Ardery in Circuit Court in Frankfort, Franklin County, directed the
clerk of the court to enter a default judgment restraining the Klan
A SPLINTERED BODY 713
"from holding itself out in any way as a corporation duly authorized to
do business in Kentucky."
Then New Jersey outlawed the order. The testimony submitted by
Attorney-General Walter D. Van Riper stressed the "improper" objec-
tives of the Klan and its past link with the German-American Bund.
(Those Knights who had participated with members of the Bund in
the joint meeting at Camp Nordland in 1940 were, Van Riper noted,
New Jersey leaders of the Klan.) Sitting in Trenton on October 10,
1946, State Supreme Court Justice A. Dayton Oliphant ruled "inopera-
tive" a perpetual charter granted the order by New Jersey in 1923.
The state charter granted the Klan in Wisconsin in 1925 was revoked
in December, 1946, bu Judge Herman V. Sachtjen in Circuit Court in
Madison, Dane County. Sachtjen announced that his ruling was based
on findings that showed that the secret fraternity stood for principles
which were contrary to the letter and spirit of both the state and federal
constitutions.
On June 13, 1947, the Klan voluntarily surrendered its Georgia
charter in Superior Court in Atlanta, Fulton County. The secret order
acted thus only after the state had deleted from an original charter re-
vocation suit charges of murder, flogging, and breach of the public
peace. The amended suit that was filed declared only that the Klan had
forfeited its charter privileges because it had been incorporated as a
benevolent and eleemosynary organization, whereas actually it had
operated for profit to itself and certain of its members. Governor
M. E. Thompson declared himself in favor of prosecuting the suit
against the Klan, but the credit for the revocation of the Georgia charter
of the order went to former Governor Ellis Arnall, who in May, 1946,
had directed the Attorney-General to begin proceedings to that end. 2
In 1949 Alabama joined the other states in curbing the Klan. On June
28 of that year Governor James E. Folsom signed a bill prohibiting the
wearing of masks in public and immediately announced that he would
issue an executive order calling for rigid enforcement of the new law.
The state legislature had given almost unanimous approval to the
unmasking bill. On June 17 the Senate passed the bill with only three
"noes"; ten days later the House of Representatives rushed it through
in four minutes by a vote of 84 to 4. Violators of the law were subject
to a $500 fine or one year in jail.
As for legal action against the Klan by representatives of govern-
ment on the local level, twenty-two southern cities had by the begin-
ning of 1950 outlawed the wearing of masks in public. In Atlanta,
Georgia, for example, the City Council in May, 1949, by a unanimous
114 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
vote of 17 to approved an ordinance to make masking one's face in
public, except for festive occasions such as Halloween, an offense pun-
ishable by a fine of $200 and thirty days in jail.
From 1915 to 1944 all Knights owed fealty to one particular mem-
ber of their order — the Imperial Wizard. It is true that in 1944 the
Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was dissolved because
of financial reasons, and the Association of Georgia Klans was formed.
But as Grand Dragon of the latter organization, Samuel J. Green was
the one individual in Klandom to whom all Knights paid homage.
Just as soon as it was expedient, in August, 1949, at a Klonvokation
held in Atlanta, Green assumed the coveted title of Imperial Wizard.
Barely two weeks later, while working in his garden, he succumbed to
a heart attack.
Immediately there appeared many pretenders to the throne of
Klandom, each seeking the land of allegiance historically due him as
leader. The scramble for the post Green left vacant resulted in ex-
tensive injury to Klanism. The secret order splintered into many rival
groups, each considering itself — or at least advertising as — the direct
spiritual heir of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
founded in 1915. Before 1949 came to an end, the number of Klans
in operation approached the dozen mark.
The Association of Georgia Klans was not destroyed by the interne-
cine competition; it survived, in fact, as the largest of the individual
Klan organizations. Succeeding Green as Imperial Wizard of the
Association of Georgia Klans on August 27, 1949, was Samuel W.
Roper, a fifty-four year old former member of the Atlanta police force,
who had taken a leave of absence in 1941-1942 to serve as Director of
the Georgia Bureau of Investigation under Governor Eugene Talmadge.-
Roper had joined the Klan in 1921, but then disaffiliated himself until
the Association of Georgia Klans was formed under Green's leadership
in 1944.
Roper was bequeathed an organization containing an estimated 100,-
000 members. Two months after taking office, Roper said he had
Kleagles operating in ten states, and correspondence from thirty-two
other states, where former Knights had founded individual Klans and
were seeking affiliation with some higher body. Upon acceding to
the Imperial Wizardship, Roper announced that he would continue
the basic policies which his predecessor had ultimately come to
follow; that is, an avowal of the spirit of charity toward Negroes,
Catholics, and Jews, 8 plus a disavowal of the practice of physically dis-
ciplining wrongdoers. As to the local Klan's reforming of personal
A SPLINTERED BODY 115
conduct in the community in which it existed, Roper declared that the
chapter's course of action should consist of reporting the delinquent
and his sins to the police, while at the same time giving to these law
authorities its full moral support.
Impeding to some extent Roper's program of expansion during its
first few months was the newly organized Federated Ku Klux Klans,
Inc. Operating in the state of Alabama, its head was Imperial Wizard
William Hugh Morris, a young roofing contractor from Birmingham.
For refusing to turn over membership records to a grand jury investi-
gating an outbreak of floggings in the Birmingham area, Morris spent
sixty-seven days in jail in the summer of 1949. While incarcerated, he
claimed there were 20,000 members in his order, and predicted that
there would be 100,000 within a year, as a manifestation of the wide-
spread arousement among Alabamans over his martyrdom.
A threat to the hegemony of Roper's order in Georgia and Morris'
in Alabama was the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of America. On
August 23, 1949, in Montgomery, Alabama, about fifty representatives
of splintered Klan groups in the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Missis-
sippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri formed this organization,
claiming it to be of nationwide proportions. Consolidating into the
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of America were the following outfits:
Independent Klans, Seashore Klans, Ozark Klans, Star Klans, River
Valley Klans, and Allied Klans. All other Klan groups were asked to
join this pseudo-national order. Both Roper's Association of Georgia
Klans and Morris' Federated Ku Klux Klans, Inc. rejected the invita-
tion.
Leading the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of America as Imperial
Emperor was a colorful individual with a name to match — Dr. Lycur-
gus Spinks. 4 Wearing his white hair down to his shoulders, covering
himself with a multitude of fraternal pins, addressing every male except
the most aged as "son," the sixty-five year old Spinks was the leader
of an individual Klan in Thomasville, Alabama, ninety miles southwest
of Montgomery. As a young man Spinks had become a Baptist clergy-
man, filling posts for a decade in the Carolinas and Arkansas. He
was later expelled from the ministry. For a couple of years he earned
a reputation as a sexologist, delivering "For Men Only" and "For
Women Only" lectures. It was during this period of his career that he
acquired the title "doctor."
Imperial Emperor Spinks claimed that the Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan of America started with a membership of 265,000. This fig-
ure was viewed by Spinks' competitors as well as by contemporary
7 76 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
journalists as an utterly gross exaggeration. The group based its ideals
directly upon the native-born, white, Protestant philosophy of the
Klan of the 1920's. It did go on record as opposed to the wearing
of the hood in public.
In addition to the Roper, Morris, and Spinks Klans was a multiplica-
tion of rather shakily constituted orders. Characteristic of each of
these were a leadership lacking in administrative skill, a membership
never in excess of a few thousand, and — consequently — a life span
that was short. The first of these small outfits to be formed was the
Original Southern Klans, Inc., the Invisible Empire. It was established
by two chapters bolted from the Association of Georgia Klans, the
ones in Columbus and nearby Manchester. The head of this organi-
zation was Grand Wizard Alton Pate, a twenty-three year old World
War II veteran and Kligrapp of the Columbus chapter of the Associa-
tion of Georgia Klans before the rift had occurred. According to Pate,
the aims of this order were the following: defense of Protestant Ameri-
canism, opposition to the "blending" of the white race with another,
prevention of political dominance by "any inferior minority group,"
and resistance to the "teachings of the Communist party which embody
advocacy of sexual equality under the guise of social equality." Ritual-
istically, the order banned the wearing of the hood except at formal
ceremonies on its own property.
Farther north was' the Association of Carolina Klans, headed by
Grand Dragon Thomas L. Hamilton, a middle-aged wholesale grocer
from Leesville, South Carolina, twenty-five miles west of Columbia.
This group stood for "truth, right, and justice" — and, more specifically,
white supremacy. Terrorism was disavowed. To his followers Grand
Dragon Hamilton charged, "If you see something you don't like, don't
mob up. Tell it to your law-enforcement officers. That's the way the
Klan wants it." Unfortunately, members of the Association of Carolina
Klans, including the Grand Dragon himself, soon dismissed from their
minds the exhortation against "night-riding." On October 1, 1952,
Hamilton began a four-year prison term for having masterminded an
extensive program of terrorism. Fifteen of his followers received
sentences averaging three years each and forty-nine others were fined
a total of $18,250.
Giving Imperial Wizard Morris a bit of trouble in Alabama for a
few months was a seventy-two year old physician from Birmingham
named E. P. Pruitt. The septuagenarian organized the Federated
Klans of Alabama, after having resigned from the Federated Ku Klux
Klans, Inc. in July, 1949, over a row with Morris regarding the wear-
A SPLINTERED BODY 117
ing of the hood and the engaging in "night-riding." Prnitt was active-
ly opposed to both practices. Neither was to have a place in his new
Federated Klans of Alabama. The physician even went so far as to
express the aim of discarding the robe. Pruitt's order was quite short-
lived.
In a geographic area including southern Georgia, northern Florida,
and eastern Alabama another Klan was functioning by the fall of 1949.
Calling itself the Original Southern Klans, Inc., it was formed by a
Columbus, Georgia, lawyer named Fred New and a radio preacher
named Jack Johnson. The New-Johnson outfit was held in little repute
by all the other Klans because it had altered much of the ritual and
discarded a great deal of the phraseology of Klanism as worked out by
Imperial Wizard Simmons three decades before.
Confined to the state of Florida was the Southern Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan. Its leader was Grand Dragon Bill Hendrix, a building
contractor from Tallahassee. If the beliefs of this outfit can be ap-
proached through a speech delivered by its Grand Dragon in the fall
of 1951, then the Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan bitterly opposed
Negroes; Jews; Communists; the Congress of Industrial Organizations;
and anything that smacked of liberalism, including people such as
Eleanor Roosevelt, places such as the University of North Carolina,
and things such as the Louisville Courier- Journal.
Also operating in Florida was the United Klan. This group was led
by C. L. Parker, a furniture dealer from River Junction, close to the
Georgia border. One hundred thousand members made up his order,
Parker claimed. If the New- Johnson body was held in low esteem by
members of other Klans for tampering too much with the ornamental
aspect of Klanism, then the Parker order was indescribably loathed, for
it desecrated the ideology. In October, 1953, Parker announced that
the United Klan would open its membership to Negroes! This was
to be done, he quickly explained, as a pleasant learning experience in
the worthwhileness of segregation. Thus, the Negro Knights would
be ruled by Negro Cyclopses in Negro Klaverns. To join the United
Klan a Negro had to pay $1 in cash and take an oath of allegiance to
God and the Constitution. There is no indication that the United Klan
was besieged with requests for application forms from the colored
population.
At the end of 1949 there was reason for believing that there would
be cohesion in Klanism once more. \ On November 22, it was an-
nounced that as a direct result of a conference between Imperial
Wizard Roper of the Association of Georgia Klans and Imperial Wizard
178 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Morris of the Federated Ku Klux Klans, Inc., these two orders had
reached a "working agreement" which would eventually lead to con-
solidation. Such a fusion would have united the two largest Klans in
the South, leaving the small splinter groups to wend their respective
ways to probable extinction. But nothing more of the "working agree-
ment" was heard from either Roper or Morris. Perhaps the latter
began to have misgivings about such an undertaking, fearing that it
would quickly turn into an absorption of his group by Roper's much
larger one. Whatever the reason, consolidation of the Association of
Georgia Klans and the Federated Ku Klux Klans, Inc. never took place.
Consequently, Morris turned elsewhere in search for unity. On
December 18, he, Grand Dragon Hendrix of the Southern Knights of
the Ku Klux Klan and Grand Dragon Hamilton of the Association of
Carolina Klans announced that collectively they would act as the
"governing body" of Klanism. In this case the Federated Ku Klux
Klans, Inc., would clearly be dominant. But this proposed consolida-
tion also never materialized.
During the early 1950's there were indications that the Klan might
disappear permanently from the American scene. As any search
through newspapers and magazines of the period will show, practi-
cally the only activities in which the Klan engaged pertained to its
role of self-appointed protector of a community's morals and peace.
Ostracism, boycotting, the sending of threatening letters, "night-rid-
ing" — at such measures the press scolded, the public was enraged.
The Klan could never remain in existence solely as a maltreater of
erring citizens.
Quite suddenly, however, in 1954, the order took a new lease on life.
For the next few years rapid growth was the keynote of Klanism. In
the South thousands of fiery crosses lighted up the night. By 1958
there were well over 100,000 new Knights and more than 500 new
chapters in the various Klans. The reason? On May 17, 1954, the
Supreme Court outlawed the segregation of races in the public schools.
The following year, on May 31, 1955, this tribunal instructed the lower
federal courts to see that the schools made "a prompt and reasonable
start" toward desegregation and proceeded "with all deliberate speed."
In the mid-1930's the Klan had intentionally sought a new issue (it
soon latched on to anti-Communism) upon which to regain its former
strength — and failed. In the mid-1950's the Klan had thrust upon
it a new issue — and thereby was able to resuscitate temporarily.'
In manifesting its opposition to desegregation the Klan used various
methods and techniques. There was an outburst of activity in Alabama.
A SPLINTERED BODY H9
In September, 1956, more than 1,000 inhabitants of Montgomery went
to a baseball grounds parking lot to listen to Klan orators advise them
how to resist desegregation of any kind. Two months later scores of
Knights gathered together with hundreds of Klan sympathizers at an
auto race track just outside of the city to hear the Supreme Court
vigorously denounced. This rally, by the way, was preceded by a
sidewalk stroll through downtown Montgomery by robed Klansmen.
At the very end of 1956 and the beginning of 1957 there was an out-
break of terrorism in the city. Bombed were Negro churches as well
as homes of Negro ministers who insistently expressed their advocacy
of integration of the races in the use of public facilities. On February
10, 1957, Chief of Police G. J. Ruppenthal announced that investigation
showed that each bombing was perpetrated by members of the Klan.
In Birmingham, in August, 1956, 200 Knights, under the blaze of
three fiery crosses, held a rally to voice their collective resistance to
the Supreme Court ruling. The following January a Klan leader told
250 robed figures assembled in the city ( not only were the Knights in
costume, but also their spouses and offspring) that the fraternity would
"not give another inch or another concession" in its opposition to
desegregation.
About 100 shouting, horn-blowing robed members of the Klan in
Mobile drove up to the home of Mrs. Dorothy D. Daponte in Septem-
ber, 1956, and set fire to a cross ten feet high as a protest against her
attempts to have a foster daughter, the child of a former Negro
domestic, admitted to a public school previously attended only by
whites.
In Florida, less than two weeks after the May, 1954, Supreme Court
decision, Grand Dragon Bill Hendrix of the Southern Knights of the
Ku Klux Klan resigned from his fraternal post and announced his
candidacy for the governorship on a pro-segregation platform. If
elected, "there will be no Negroes going to white schools or whites
going to Negro schools," he promised. His plan was to ask for write-
in votes in November. Hendrix's successor as Grand Dragon of the
Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan instructed his underlings to
distribute petitions against desegregation in the schools of the Sunshine
State. The petitions were addressed to Acting Governor Charley
Johnson, the State Board of Education, and county school boards.
Also in Florida, in July, 1956, 200 hooded and robed members of the
Klan and 1,000 sympathizers in street clothes gathered outside of Lake-
land, twenty-five miles northeast of Tampa, to protest any move what-
ever toward school desegregation. During the course of the rally
120 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
hillbilly music was played, a cross was set ablaze, perfervid speeches
were delivered by three Knights, and 3,000 application forms were
distributed to the non-Klan spectators. The following month, in an
open field just south of Starke, while 500 spectators witnessed the event
from behind a roped off area, 125 hooded and robed Knights cheered
one of their leaders lustily as he denounced the Supreme Court.
On September 29, 1956, in a pasture not far from Atlanta, Georgia,
the Klan held its biggest rally since the advent of World War II. More
than 3,500 Knights from at least five southern states, accompanied by
their wives and children, heard leaders emphasize that their order
would stay within "laws that are just" in its battle against desegregation.
The football field of a public high school attended only by whites
in Summerville, Georgia, which lies in the extreme northwestern part
of the state, was ordered padlocked in November, 1956, against use
by two teams from all-Negro schools following a protest by a purported
Klan leader of the area. The game had been arranged by the local
Junior Chamber of Commerce to raise funds for the white high school
band.
In July, 1956, a Methodist church school in Camden, South Carolina,
thirty miles northeast of Columbia, was forced to close down because
of possible violence against the integrated group of fifteen students
in attendance. There had been a rash of anonymous telephone calls
to the church authorities threatening to blow up the building or burn
it down. In addition, a cross had been burned in front of the school.
The mayor of the town, Henry Savage, publicly blamed the entire
incident on a revival of Klanism since the Supreme Court ruling.
Camden was not to see the end of agitation over the segregation issue.
Less than a half year later Guy Hutchins, the band director of the
local all-white high school, was flogged by a group of men for allegedly
preaching integration in public institutions of learning. Of the six
men arrested for the act of terrorism, at least one admitted being a
member of the Klan.
Two mass meetings were held on July 28, 1956, in South Carolina,
one at Columbia and the other at Hartsville, sixty miles away. Hooded
and robed Knights denounced the Supreme Court and desegregation.
At the Hartsville rally a Klan orator who identified himself to members
of the press only as a "country preacher from down the road" called
President Dwight D. Eisenhower a "low-down scoundrel" for having
carried out after World War II, as Chief of Staff of the United States
Army, integration in his branch of the service.
In March, 1958, three members of the Klan in North Carolina were
A SPLINTERED BODY 121
sentenced to prison for terms varying from two to ten years. The ac-
tion taken against them was the end result of the manner in which
these Knights protested against desegregation in the Tar Heel State —
attempting to bomb, on February, 1957, a Negro elementary school
outside of Charlotte.
The Klan was not the only organization to resist desegregation in
the public schools of the South. Two months after the May 17, 1954,
Supreme Court decision, there was formed in Indianola, Mississippi,
a hamlet which lies close to the Arkansas border, the White Citizens
Council. Within a year branches of the new outfit sprang up all over
Dixie. By 1957 the White Citizens Council had some 300,000 members
in more than 500 chapters. Its strongest backing came from the Deep
South, where the ratio of Negroes to whites has always been high.
The state of Mississippi alone, for example, contained more than one-
fourth of the membership of the Council.
It would be well to contrast the Council with the Klan. First, from
the very beginning the Council carried out its program in the open.
Public auditoriums and theaters were used for meetings. Members
made no attempt to shield from others their affiliation with the group.
Second, in striving to create an image of "respectability," it studiously
avoided extremism. There was to be no donning of regalia, engaging
in ritual, or participating in terrorism. Third, as a result of the preced-
ing policies it enlisted the support of the most esteemed citizens.
Among those who joined the Council were, for example, the following:
in Louisiana a state senator, a state university board supervisor, and a
former president of the state medical association; in Alabama three
state senators and the mayor of Montgomery; in North Carolina several
leading industrialists, three former Speakers of the state Assembly, a
state university medical school professor, and a former United States
Attorney.
Did these basic differences between the Council and the Klan pre-
clude all intercourse? The answer is "no." Much of the anti-integra-
tion literature distributed by the two organizations was identical.
Also, in many localities individuals belonged to both groups at the
same time. The secretary-treasurer of the Association of White Cit-
izens Councils of Florida, Homer Barrs, said in an interview, "We don't
bar Klan members from joining the Councils. Any white person who
does not belong to the NAACP is eligible." Then, too, Council leaders
addressed Klan meetings. Doing more of this than anyone else was
John Kasper, secretary of the White Citizens Council of Washington,
D. C. He appeared before groups of Knights — in Alabama in the
122 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
fall of 1956, in Florida in the spring of 1957, in Tennessee in the
summer of 1957 — to urge the Klan to co-operate with the Council
in preaching the "segregation gospel." 8
While the battle against desegregation in the public schools of the
South was taking place, the multiplication of Klans was going on.
There seemed to be a spewing forth! By 1958 there were so many
different splinter groups that the tabulation of them is unreliable. The
f actionalism that resulted was more than a lack of centralized authority
in Klanism; it was internecine warfare.
The dominant organization was the U. S. Klans, Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan. Its head was Imperial Wizard Eldon Lee Edwards, a
forty-eight year old paint sprayer at an automobile body plant in
Atlanta. Edwards' order was the direct descendant of the Association
of Georgia Klans that had been led by Imperial Wizards Green and
Roper. In 1950 Edwards assumed leadership of the Association of
Georgia Klans, reorganized it slightly, and renamed it the U. S. Klans,
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Outside the home state of Georgia, Edwards' order was most active
in South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana. As a matter of fact, the
Grand Dragon of the U. S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in each
of these states wielded more power and earned a greater reputation
than the actual heads of the other Klan groups in existence. The
Grand Dragon of the Realm of South Carolina was James H. Bickley,
a carpenter from Marion, close to the North Carolina border. Within
three months after taking office, he increased the number of chapters
in the Palmetto State from twenty to thirty-five. "I ain't got nothing
against niggers," Bickley remarked on one occasion. "I don't
believe most of them would be causing any trouble if it wasn't
for the NAACP and the Jews. I understand there are a lot of Com-
munists . . . trying to get us to integrate with the niggers so we'll breed
down the race."
The Grand Dragon of the Realm of Alabama was Alvin Horn, an
electrical worker and self-proclaimed Baptist minister from Talladega,
fifty miles east of Birmingham. When he assumed his duties as Grand
Dragon in the summer of 1956, there were but two chapters of the
U. S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Less than a
year later there were more than 100.
A Baton Rouge welder named Edgar Taylor was the Grand Dragon
of the Realm of Louisiana. "The niggers are the main thing with us
now," Taylor told a journalist in the spring of 1957. "We are not
fighting Jews and Catholics except where they help the niggers."
A SPLINTERED BODY 123
On a nationwide television program in 1957 Imperial Wizard Ed-
wards maintained that "God Almighty created the races and segregated
them, sent them each on their own destiny." As for his Klan's program
of opposition to desegregation in the schools, violence in any form
would be shunned.
Edwards refused to divulge the numerical strength of his Klan, giv-
ing as a reason the fact that it was a secret fraternity. The member-
ship was estimated by contemporary observers to be about 50,000.
Whatever the size of the U. S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, it
was the largest of all the orders. Edwards asserted that it was
the "one true Klan." The other organizations were "outlaws and coun-
terfeiters." But verbalization on the part of the Imperial Wizard —
however emphatic it may have been — could not check the luxuriance
of Klans.
The largest order next to the U. S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan was the Florida Ku Klux Klan, with a membership of about
30,000. Somewhere at the top of the hierarchy of this organization
was J. E. Fraser, a nurseryman from Macclenny, twenty-five miles
west of Jacksonville. Reputed to be the leader of the Florida Ku Klux
Klan as Grand Wizard, Fraser consistently denied holding that office,
but at the same time maintained that he could always speak for the
individual who did. According to Fraser, the Florida Ku Klux Klan
stood for white supremacy, segregation, and "upholding the law."
"There's plenty of ways to do things within the law and sometimes we
have to straighten up the officials," he said. "Fellow sells his house
to a nigger in a white neighborhood and we just spread the word. He
loses his business and his friends. That . . . boy better just get out of
this state."
Probably next in size was the Association of South Carolina Klans \
The name of the head of this group was kept from the public. Acting
as spokesman for it was the Kligrapp of the chapter in Columbia,
Robert E. Hodges. A student at a business college in that city, the
twenty-four year old Hodges declared that the activities of the Associa-
tion of South Carolina Klans were directed primarily against Negroes,
but also against Catholics and Jews whenever the latter two made
efforts to help Negroes achieve civil rights or social equality.
Operating at opposite ends of Alabama were two small but ex-
tremely aggressive organizations. In the northern part of the state
was the Original Ku Klux Klan of the Confederacy, led by Asa Carter,
a young radio announcer from Birmingham who had been expelled
from the White Citizens Council for his extremist activities. Perhaps
124 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
the most violent of all the orders, the Original Ku Klux Klan of the
Confederacy conducted blood-rite initiation ceremonies, sanctioned the
carrying of weapons by its members, and directed extraordinarily
abusive harangues against Negroes, Catholics, and Jews.
In the southern part of Alabama the Gulf Ku Klux Klan carried on.
Heading it as Imperial Wizard was a gunsmith from Mobile named
Elmo C. Barnard. According to him, the Gulf Ku Klux Klan stood for
free speech, a free press, free public schools, white supremacy, "just"
laws, "the pursuit of happiness," and American rejection of foreign
creeds. Barnard condemned terrorism as basic policy for any group,
but said a "little violence" might have to be resorted to in resolving
the conflict between Negroes and whites.
Across the Mississippi River in Louisiana was an ineffectual group
called the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, led by the Rev. Perry E.
Strickland, the founder of the Central Baptist Mission just outside of
Baton Rouge. Strickland stated that some Catholics who were opposed
to desegregation of the races in the public schools attempted to join
his order, but were unhesitatingly turned down. "We need a white
Protestant group based on American principles," the minister con-
cluded.
A triology of Klans functioned in Arkansas. In addition to two
small groups, the Association of Arkansas Klans and the Original Ku
Klux Klan, was Edwards' order, with A. C. Hightower, a barber by
trade, acting as Grand Dragon. According to Hightower, his fol-
lowers were "strictly law-abiding citizens." 8
Just as Klanism was vivified in 1954 by the occurrence of an outside
event, the Supreme Court decision on segregation, so to a lesser extent
was it in 1960. For on July 13 of that year, in Los Angeles, California,
the national convention of the Democratic party chose as its nominee
for the presidency a Catholic, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachu-
setts. Fiery crosses were soon in evidence throughout Dixie. There
were at night Klan parades and rallies. Before long, in some cities of
the Deep South Knights even dared to walk the streets in broad day-
light wearing their hoods and robes. What effect did the activity of
the Klan have upon the outcome of the ensuing election? To give as
complete an answer as possible, it would be well to compare the
presidential campaign of 1960 with the one of 1928, in which the
Democratic standard-bearer also was a Catholic, Governor Alfred E.
Smith of New York.
It is not difficult to find the reasons for the defeat of the Democratic
candidate in 1928. In addition to the existence of a belief on the part
A SPLINTERED BODY 125
of many that the general prosperity of the times would soon disappear
without Republican rule, there was widespread opposition to Smith
because of his anti-prohibitionism, his Tammany connections, his
"alienism," and his Catholicism.
Nineteen sixty was different. Kennedy was not a "wet" who had
incurred the wrath of the Anti-Saloon League and Woman's Christian
Temperance Union. He was not associated with a local party organiza-
tion known for its flagrant political abuses. He did not represent the
"alienism" of a metropolis; neither did he even give an appearance of
so doing, for he was rich, well-educated, handsomely fair, tastefully
groomed, cultivated in speech. Kennedy was, however, a Catholic.
The standard-bearer of the Democratic party in 1928 failed to win the
election not because of his Catholicism. Still, his religious affiliation
was unquestionably a factor in the defeat. In 1960 many a non-
Catholic voter was ready to cast a ballot for a Catholic presidential
nominee whose party, record, and campaign promises were to his
liking. The West Virginia Democratic presidential primary of May
10, 1960, offers a superb illustration of this. Facing the voters were
Kennedy and the Protestant Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota,
each comparable to the other in youth, personableness, and legislative
voting record. The pollsters anticipated Kennedy's defeat on the
religious issue. When the final returns were in, he had won handily,
receiving 235,738 votes to Humphrey's 149,214. The surprising victory
took place for many reasons. Compared with the Humphreyites, the
Kennedy forces spent a considerably greater amount of money; were
much more efficiently organized; and had Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.,
stump the state to convince the miners, the vast majority of whom
looked back on the New Deal with nostalgia, that the Senator from
Massachusetts was the spiritual descendant of F. D. R. Most political
observers considered Kennedy himself to be the biggest factor in the
landslide. One popular news magazine had this to say: "His easy
manner, serious speeches and kinetic charm, his decision to fight out
the religious issue, and even his Harvard accent — all won respect and
votes."
\ It is difficult to assess the effect of Klan activity upon the outcome
of the election of 1928, for there were other influential groups as well as
prominent religious figures and bolting Democratic leaders attacking
Smith for one or more of the same reasons as were given by the secret
fraternity for its opposition to the Democratic candidate. [
Ninteen sixty was similar. Along with the Klan were organizations
and individuals hostile to Kennedy for the very same reasons; namely,
126 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
his Catholicism and his stand on civil rights. The Democratic national
convention adopted for 1960 a civil rights plank that reached far beyond
anything on this issue included in any previous platform of either major
political party. According to the plank, the Democratic party en-
dorsed the "equal access for all Americans to all areas of community
life, including voting booths, schoolrooms, jobs, housing and public
facilities"; advocated that the Attorney-General be "directed to file civil
injunction suits in federal courts to prevent the denial of any civil
rights on grounds of race, creed or color"; and proposed the establish-
ment of a federal Fair Employment Practices Commission to "secure
for everyone the right to equal opportunity for employment." In
accepting the nomination of his party, Kennedy declared, "This is a
platform on which I can run with enthusiasm and with conviction."
Taking an active part in the effort to swing certain of the customarily
Democratic states to the standard-bearer of the Republican party,
Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, were, for example, such organiza-
tions as the White Citizens Council; the Church of Christ, a Fundamen-
talist denomination centered in Tennessee; and the Citizens for Religi-
ous Freedom, 8 and such individuals as Dr. Baines M. Cook, the chief
administrator of the activities of the Disciples of Christ; and Dr.
Ramsey Pollard, President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
As for southern Democratic leaders, not one came out publicly
against the titular head of his party because he was Catholic, as
Senator J. Thomas Heflin of Alabama had done thirty-two years before.
But the Democratic politicians of Dixie were unhappy — extremely un-
happy — with Kennedy's position on civil rights. Nixon was enthusias-
tically welcomed in Georgia by Mayor William B. Hartsfield of At-
lanta and quite popular former gubernatorial candidate James V.
Carmichael, the latter going so far as to pledge publicly his sup-
port of the Republican presidential nominee. Senator Harry F. Byrd
of Virginia failed to give the nod to Kennedy. Senator J. Strom Thur-
mond of South Carolina declared that he could abide neither the
party's "obnoxious and punitive" platform nor its standard-bearer.
James F. Byrnes, who during the course of his career served as
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Secretary of State under
Truman, and Governor of his home state of South Carolina, con-
demned the civil rights plank of the party's platform and announced
himself for the Republican ticket. After sitting on their hands for al-
most three months after the Democratic convention was held, Senators
Herman Talmadge and Richard B. Russell of Georgia raised them
gingerly in favor of their colleague from Massachusetts. Meeting on
A SPLINTERED BODY 727
September 20, in Dallas, the Texas Democratic convention adopted a
plank in its state platform that was diametrically opposed to the civil
rights plank in the party's national platform. Not until the end of
September, at the twenty-sixth annual Southern Governors Conference,
did ten of the chief executives of states south of the Mason-Dixon
line abandon their lukewarm stand during the campaign to give full
support to Kennedy.
It is most difficult to prove that playing a determining role in the
presidential election of 1928 was an order that had recently been
censured by the American public for its excesses, lost its political
potency, and suffered a sharp drop in membership. If the Klan was
indeed a factor in the desertion of almost half the "Solid South" to the
Republican candidate, Herbert Hoover, then it was not the substance
but the spirit of the fraternity that made it so.
Nineteen sixty? There are scattered examples of the Klan's en-
gaging in political activity of national significance. In 1958 Imperial
Wizard Edwards' order, the U.S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
worked in Alabama for the election of John Patterson to the highest
office in the state. Patterson realized his gubernatorial aspirations.
When, months before the Democratic national convention of 1960, he
endorsed Kennedy as his personal choice for the presidency, he was
visited by a thirty-two man delegation headed by the Kladd of the Klan
in Prattville, just outside of Montgomery. The Alabama chief ex-
ecutive was asked if it had ever occurred to him that he was
"being used as a guinea pig by the Communist-Jewish integrators"
to sample the political sentiment of the South for the Senator from
Massachusetts. And just before the conclusion of the presidential cam-
paign, representatives of various chapters of the U.S. Klans, Knights
of the Ku Klux Klan in the Gulf state attended a meeting held in the
Tuscaloosa County courthouse, at which the newly appointed Grand
Dragon of the Realm of Alabama, Bob Shelton, exhorted, "Klansmen
should stay away from Kennedy and keep an eye on John Patterson.
. . . They are the tools of the Jews."
Klan leaders in Florida spoke out. The Grand Dragon of the
U.S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in that state, William J. Griffin,
announced himself in September, 1960, for the nominee of the
G. O. P. 10 Boosting Governor Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas for the
presidency on the National States' Rights ticket was Bill Hendrix, who
was once more head of the Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as
Grand Dragon, after having resigned from his fraternal post in 1954
to run for the governorship of Florida on a pro-segregation platform.
128 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
In a communication sent out to every member of the Association of
South Carolina Klans, Robert E. Hodges, the Kligrapp of the chapter in
Columbia, declared: "You cannot afford to support or vote for anyone
or group that represents the Roman Catholic Church. To do so is to
vote against your God, and Savior, and your church, your country
and even yourself since the Catholic Church is directly opposed to
Protestant churches, your America, and especially you as a Protestant. .
Heaven help your soul if you vote away your religious liberty ..."
In the Upper South, John Kasper of the White Citizens Council
went before many Klan groups to attack Kennedy's candidacy. If the
Senator from Massachusetts happened to be successful in his bid for
the presidency, Kasper iterated, he should be "impeached before the
sun rises."
The presidential election of 1960 turned out to be the closest in
modern times. Kennedy won the electoral vote of the southern half
of New England, the Middle Atlantic states, plus most of the "Solid
South"; Nixon carried four states of Dixie — Virginia, Kentucky, Ten-
nessee, and Florida, 12 nearly all of the north central and mountain
states, 'plus the entire Pacific coast. In popular votes, Kennedy
received 34,221,355 to Nixon's 34,109,398. This was a plurality for
the Democrat of 111,957 over his opponent, representing less than
two-tenths of 1 per cent of the total number of votes cast — the smallest
percentage difference between the popular votes of two presidential
candidates since the election of 1884.
The effectiveness of the political proceedings by the secret order
during the campaign is problematical. The Klan declined in power as
Election Day, November 8, 1960, approached. There are two basic
reasons for this, in addition to widespread public repulsion at the
terrorism of the order. First, the White Citizens Council, in its shun-
ning all extremist measures, lured away from the Klan the vast
majority of Southerners desiring to join an organization that would
battle for the status quo in racial matters. Second, the Klan was
literally being ripped apart by the continual formation of splinter
groups. By 1960 the number of separate orders was not even definitely
known; it was changing too frequently. A high-ranking Knight in
Florida pointed out that there were so many different Klan groups
in existence that the old passwords and counter-signs were unusable.
One southern newspaper tittered that so many Klans were operating
in Dixie that it was "impossible to tell the Grand Dragons, Wizards,
and Kleagles apart without a program."
Thus, if the Klan was a. factor in the desertion of a portion of the
A SPLINTERED BODY 729
"Solid South" to the Republican nominee in the presidential election
of 1960, then it was the spirit and not the substance of the secret order
that made it so — as had been the case in the presidential election
of 1928.
REFERENCES
Chapter I
1. The Ku Klux Klan, 67 Cong., 1 Sess. (Washington, 1921), 121, contains
this description of the elements as recollected by William Joseph Simmons. A
stenographic record of the hearings on Klan activities held before the House Com-
mittee on Rules, October 11-17, 1921, this will be cited hereafter as Klan Hearings.
2. It appears that Simmons was at one point discharged for inefficiency as a
salesman of men's garters.
3. Klan Hearings, 67-68.
4. In Klan Hearings, 67, appears the following statement by Simmons: "They
call me 'Colonel,' largely out of respect. Every lawyer in Georgia is called 'Colo-
nel,' so they thought that I was as good as a lawyer, so they call me that. ... I
was at one time the senior colonel in command of five regiments and colonel of
my own regiment of the uniform rank of the Woodmen of the World, and I was
known as 'Colonel.' I have used that title on certain literature of the klan for
the reason that there are three other 'W. J. Simmonses' in Adanta, and for some
time our mail got confused. It is merely a designation. They accord it to me
as an honor and I appreciate it."
5. Klansman's Manual, Compiled and Issued Under Direction and Authority of
the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Incorporated (n.p., 1924), chap. Ill, sec. II. For
detailed information on the operation of the local Klan chapter, see the pamphlet,
Klan Building. An Outline of Proven Klan Methods for Successfully Applying
the Art of Klankraft in Building and Operating Local Klans (Atlanta, 1923).
6. See Kloran, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan: First Degree Character (Atlanta,
1916), which was undoubtedly written by Simmons. The pamphlet, Delivery of
Chapter. Issued by Imperial Palace, Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan (Atlanta, 1923), also sets forth the order of the Klonklave.
7. These were all duly copyrighted in Simmons's name. Years later he received
from the Klan a great sum of money for these copyrights.
8. "Many wise men," Simmons once stated, "have puzzled over that motto.
They said it wasn't Latin and it wasn't Greek. I made the motto up myself. It's
part Latin and part Saxon. 'Non' and 'sed,' of course, are Latin. But I was
reliably informed that 'Silba' is an old Saxon word meaning 'self and 'anthar'
means 'others.' So, you see, 'Not for self, but for others.' Simple enough." In
William G. Shepherd, "How I Put Over the Klan," Colliers, July 14, 1928, p. 32.
9. Winfield Jones, The True Story of the Ku Klux Klan (n.p., 1921), 52, states
that Simmons did get appreciable assistance from three men: Imperial Kligrapp
Louis D. Wade, a cotton mill superintendent; Imperial Klabee H. C. Montgomery,
an Atlanta optician; and "Imperial Klonsel," or legal advisor, Paul S. Etheridge,
a lawyer and member of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners of Roads and
Revenues.
10. Klan Hearings, 69.
730
REFERENCES 737
11. For the text of the contract, see Klan Hearings, 32.
12. Quoted in "For and Against the Ku Klux Klan," The Literary Digest,
September 24, 1921, p. 38.
13. For a list of all the Kleagles active at this time, see New York World,
September 9, 1921, p. 2.
14. Atlanta remained the lead city of Klan activity until 1928, when the organi-
zation established a new national headquarters in Washington, D. C.
15. Testimony of Simmons in Case 1897 in Equity (1927), U. S. District Court,
Pittsburgh.
16. Stanley Frost, "When the Klan Rules," The Outlook, December 26, 1923,
p. 717. Frost's study of the Klan appears in eleven consecutive issues of The
Outlook.
17. In Edward Price Bell, Creed of the Klansman (Chicago, 1924), 8, appears
a defense Evans once made of the wearing of the hood: it "protects scores of
thousands of our members from intimidation, sabotage, and worse, and it screens
our leaders from the temptation to forget the general interest in the pursuit of
particular whims or ambitions. Self-esteem is eliminated. There is no lure of
personal vanity nor of demagogy."
18. See The Whole Truth About the Effort to Destroy the Klan (Atlanta, 1923),
which is a pamphlet Evans ordered published to show how self-seeking men had
gathered about Simmons in order to rule the Klan for personal gain.
19. Marion Monteval [pseud, of Edgar Irving Fuller?], The Klan Inside Out
(Claremore, Okla., [c. 19241), 51; C. Anderson Wright, The Ku Klux Klan, As
Exposed by Major C. Anderson Wright . . . and as Defended by Col. Wm. J.
Simmons (Atlanta, 1923), 16.
20. In July, 1922, Imperial Kligrapp Louis D. Wade filed suit alleging that
Clarke had gained complete control over Simmons by taking advantage of his
continual drunken condition.
21. W. M. Likins, Patriotism Capitalized: or, Religion Turned into Gold (Union-
town, Pa., 1925), 126.
22. For the case against Stephenson, see Edgar Allen Booth, The Mad Mullah
of America (Columbus, 1927); for the case for him, see Robert A. Butler. "So
They Framed Stephenson" (Huntington, Ind., 1940). (In 1956 Stephenson was
released from prison.)
23. Of the 115,000,000 Americans in the 1920's, 20,000,000 were foreign born;
10,000,000, Negro; 20,000,000, Catholic; and almost 3,000,000, Jewish.
24. Since the Klan, as a secret fraternity, never published its numerical strength,
each figure given in this paragraph is an approximation based upon recollections of
Klan leaders or estimates by contemporary reporters and later students of the
organization.
Chapter II
1. In the Washington, D. C. Fellowship Forum, November 24, 1923, p. 2, there
appear for comparison two maps of the nation showing the expansion of the Klan,
one reproduced from the New York Herald of November 11, 1923, and the other
from the New York Times of November 12, 1923. Although the two maps do not
agree in particulars, both show quite vividly that the Klan was powerful in the
132 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Deep South, in the territory west of the lower Mississippi River, on the Pacific
coast, and in the Middle West.
2. In the vigorously pro-Klan pamphlet, George E. Hills, The Ku Klux Klan of
the Present Day (1923), 3, is found the following peculiar denial of the secret
order's limiting its membership solely to Protestants: "Any Jew can belong if he
believes in the divinity of Christ, any Catholic if he can fulfill the obligations of
membership." Although the Klan at all times excluded women from membership,
wives of Klansmen did form groups auxiliary to the local chapters. In the summer
of 1927 the "Women of the Ku Klux Klan" went so far as to hold a national con-
vention and adopt a constitution, which was never recognized by Klan national
headquarters.
3. The number of Protestant ministers who condemned the Klan is, of course,
legion. Such clergymen were horrified that a secret order which fostered racial
and religious prejudice should attempt to speak in the name of the Protestant
church.
4. Leaders of the revived Klan were fairly quick to realize the value of
Griffith's masterpiece in their propaganda activities. For example, the Jackson,
Mississippi Daily Clarion-Ledger, August 10, 1924, p. 16, contains a three-quarters
page high endorsement of "The Birth of a Nation" by the Jackson Klan No. 22,
Realm of Mississippi, in which the Exalted Cyclops wrote the following: "I feel
sure that all good Americans in our city and surrounding territory, both men and
women [,] will come to see this wonderful picture."
5. John Moffatt Mecklin, TJie Ku Klux Klan, A Study of the American Mind
(New York, 1924), 157, states that he found, through many personal interviews
with, and a questionnaire to, representative citizens from all parts of the nation
who had become Klansmen, that the selling-point which gained most members
for the secret order was undoubtedly anti-Catholicism.
6. The practice of "night-riding" was more prevalent among the Klansmen of
the South than among those of other sections of the nation. "The Rise and Fall
of the K. K. K.," The New Republic, November 30, 1927, p. 33, declares, "Some
hoodlums signed up in order to participate in the night riding; but it is safe to
say that 90 percent of the total membership list never indulged in such practices."
7. Catalogue of Official [Ku Klux Klan] Robes and Banners (Atlanta, 1925).
For carrying the costume, a "rubberoid" case with separate compartments for
hood and robe could be had for $1. The Gate City Manufacturing Company of
Atlanta, which after 1920 was under contract to make the official Klan regalia,
realized a profit of about $4 on every $5 costume it produced. The costume was
merely rented to a Klansman and was to be returned if the member resigned from
the organization.
8. Occasionally witnesses of a Klan parade were hostile to the marchers to
the extent of actually attacking them. See, for example, The Martyred Klansman,
In Which Events Leading Up to the Shooting to Death of Klansman Thomas )
Rankin Abbott, on August 25, 1923, are Related .... (Pittsburgh, 1923). As for
the only national parade held by the order — in Washington, D. C, on August 8,
1925 — most reporters estimated that there were from 50,000 to 60,000 in the
three hour and forty minute march down Pennsylvania Avenue.
9. Of the secondary works on the Ku Klux Klan of the Reconstruction period,
three of the best aTe Stanley Fitzgerald Horn, Invisible Empire, The Story of the
Ku Klux Klan, 1866-1871 (Boston, 1939); Susan Lawrence Davis, Authentic
REFERENCES 733
History, Ku Klux Klan, 1860-1877 (New York, 1934); W. B. Romine and Mrs.
W. B. Romine, Story of the Original Ku Klux Klan (Pulaski, Tenn., 1934).
10. Ideals of the Ku Klux Klan (Atlanta, 1923), 3-4.
11. It must not be overlooked that this championing of things Protestant and
native-born makes the Klan of the 1920's appear to be the successor more to two
nineteenth century nativist organizations, the Know-Nothing party and the Ameri-
can Protective Association, than to its namesake. One of the best general accounts
of Know-Nothingism can be found in Louis Dow Scisco, Political Nativism in New
York (New York, 1901 ). A standard work on the American Protective Association
is Humphrey J. Desmond, The A. P. A. Movement, A Sketch (Washington, 1912).
A good brief coverage of both movements is found in Gustavus Myers, History of
Bigotry in the United States (New York, 1943), chaps. XVIII-XXII.
12. John Moffatt Mecklin, The Ku Klux Klan, A Study of the American Mind
(New York, 1924), 100, states that Baptists were "apparently the religious
mainstay of the Klan."
13. A hint of how the local Klan lent assistance to its own can be acquired from
Ku Klux Klan, Realm of Indiana, Marion County Klan No. 3. Local Constitution
(Marion, Ind., 1924), art. VI, sec. 2, which states that donations were not to
exceed $4 a week for each member of a distressed Klan family, and relief was not to
be extended for more than six weeks, except by the authorization of the Kludd.
14. Of all the cases of Klan terrorism during the 1920's the Mer Rouge murder
incident is undoubtedly the most notorious. The amount of contemporary litera-
ture dealing with the facts and results of the episode is quite extensive.
Chapter III
1. Stanley Frost, "When the Klan Rules," The Outlook, February 20, 1924,
p. 310, writes that in nearly 90 per cent of the election contests he had been able
to check, the Klan apparently had cast a practically solid vote.
Chapter IV
1. It should perhaps be stated at this point why the participation of the south-
ern wing of the Klan in the election of representatives to Congress is treated in
this chapter. The reason is that although representatives are members of the
national government, they are elected by the voters, and reflect the political think-
ing, of a specific local area within a particular state.
2. The Klan's attempt to hold a meeting in Louisville was abandoned, and the
activities of the fraternity were finally transferred to Jeffersonville, Indiana, op-
posite Louisville on the Ohio River.
3. Supplied by J. B. Stoner in an interview with Stetson Kennedy, December
12, 1945. In Stetson Kennedy Papers, New York Public Library, Harlem Branch.
4. J. P. Alley's cartoons and C. P. J. Mooney's editorials against the extremely
active local Klan in Memphis won a Pulitzer Prize for their newspaper, the
Memphis Commercial- Appeal, in 1922.
5. The word "promptly" used in the text is taken from the account in the
Raleigh News and Observer, November 7, 1924, p. 2. Owned and published by
the well-known Democratic politician, Josephus Daniels, the anti-Klan Raleigh
News and Observer was a highly reliable and respectable newspaper. Taking
734 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
all this into consideration, it requires just a bit of reading between the lines to
detect the probable positive relationship between Mayor Williams and the local
Klan in Ahoskie.
6. In Josephus Daniels Papers, Library of Congress.
7. Klan Hearings, 74.
8. In Stetson Kennedy Papers, New York Public Library, Harlem Branch.
9. The New York Times, September 21, 1922, p. 2, notes that Sims "if not a
member of the Klan is closely affiliated with the organization."
10. In his reply to the attacks upon the local Klan by the Pulaski County Demo-
cratic convention Cook referred to Dodge as an "ex-Klansman lawyer, who has
been suspended."
Chapter V
1. Klan Hearings, 26-27.
2. For a highly informative biographical sketch of Upshaw, see Washington,
D. C. Fellowship Forum, April 11, 1925, p. 4. Upshaw was known for his inter-
est and participation in the causes of prohibition, Fundamentalism, and American-
ism. For his thoughts on these and other matters, see William D. Upshaw,
Clarion Calls From Capitol Hill (New York, 1923).
3. Klan Hearings, 67.
4. Klan Hearings, 86-87.
5. C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel (New York, 1938), 450,
concludes, "If Watson had any hand in launching the new organization [the Klan] ,
no record has been found that reveals it. Yet if any mortal man may be credited
(as no one man may rightly be) with releasing the forces of human malice and
ignorance and prejudice, which the Klan merely mobilized, that man was Thomas
E. Watson."
6. The Atlanta Constitution, July 9, 1924, p. 1, notes that Forrest admitted to
the authenticity of the document.
7. The Atlanta Constitution, June 27, 1924, p. 1, notes that at the Democratic
national convention Cohen claimed that, to his knowledge, not one of the fifty-six
delegates from Georgia was a Klansman.
8. Reuben Maury, The Wars of the Godly (New York, 1928), 285; Michael
Williams, The Shadow of the Pope (New York, 1932), 141-42, are fully satisfied
with the Klan's claim of responsibility for Underwood's political retirement. In
evaluating the article by Evans in The World's Work, the New York Times, Janu-
ary 8, 1928, III, p. 1, contends that the secret order did not frighten the Senator
out of politics; "What the masked gang did was to disgust Mr. Underwood, and
to make him see the futility of further sacrifice of time, energy and health for
a State rotten to the core with Klan influence."
9. McCall remained a Knight until October 19, 1927.
10. For a more detailed treatment of Graves' admission of association with
the Klan, see below, 98.
11. It was alleged that Mayfield had resigned from the Klan in January,
1922.
12. For the text of a letter by Culberson to an influential constituent, in which
he expressed hope that the state authorities would take immediate steps to destroy
the Klan, see Cong. Record, 67 Cong., 3 Sess., 7996.
REFERENCES J 35
13. For the details of the elimination contest held by one of the local Klans in
Texas, Dallas Klan No. 66, see Senator From Texas, 68 Cong., 1-2 Sess. (Wash-
ington, 1924), 376-77. A stenographic record of the hearings on alleged irregulari-
ties in the 1922 Texas senatorial race held before the Senate Committee on
Privileges and Elections, May 8-December 18, 1924, this will be cited hereafter as
Mayjield Hearings.
14. The total vote garnered by the pro-Klan candidates in the Democratic
senatorial primary of July 22, 1922, was approximately 177,000, while that received
by the anti-Klan candidates was over 328,000.
15. Probably feeling that to do so was unnecessary, Mayfield never mentioned
the Klan in his campaign addresses.
16. Erwin J. Clark, who while he was serving as District Judge of the McLennan
County Court at Waco in the early 1920's was a Great Titan of a Province of the
Realm of Texas, affirmed that in 1922 Evans (at the time Exalted Cyclops of the
local Klan in Dallas, he was soon to be Imperial Kligrapp and then Im-
perial Wizard) argued that the secret order simply had to concentrate behind
Mayfield in the Democratic primary because the Klan needed to have a senator
elected from Texas who was "in a position to get in touch with the big business
of the country." who was "in line with the railroad interests," and who could
"even approach Standard Oil." In Mayjield Hearings, 68.
17. In 1924 Henry admitted that he had joined the Klan in Febru-
ary, 1922, but later withdrew from it. In Mayjield Hearings, 46, 56.
18. Mayjield Hearings, 1A, 51. passim.
19. Among the other seven candidates in this primary were Lieutenant Gover-
nor T. W. Davidson and wealthy lumberman Lynch Davidson.
20. For a short and incisive analysis of the personality and abilities of James
E. Ferguson, see Charles W. Ferguson, "James E. Ferguson," Southwest Review,
October, 1924, pp. 32-33.
21. Robertson received 190,885 votes, while Mrs. Ferguson got 145,137.
22. The New York Times, August 31, 1924, VIII, p. 3, in an extended article
on the personal qualities of Mrs. Ferguson, declares, "The campaign slogan,
'Me for Ma,' while effectual as a vote-getter, does not embody any term ever
used familiarly in the Ferguson family. . . . The 'Ma' idea came from her initials,
M. A. Ferguson, her ordinary signature. . . . 'Ma' is not the kind of term applicable
to a woman possessing as much dignity as Mrs. Ferguson, . . . but she well knew
the force of the homely appeal."
23. The New York Times, August 5, 1924, p. 16, in an editorial devastatingly
satirizes Mrs. Ferguson's leaving the speechmaking to her husband.
24. Mrs. Ferguson received 427,225 votes, while Robertson got 337,832.
25. It should be noted, however, that in this election the Republican party
of the solidly Democratic state of Texas polled the largest vote in its history. Al-
though Mrs. Ferguson received 422,558 votes to Butte's 294,970, for many years
prior to the 1924 election the Republican gubernatorial candidate had never polled
more than 65,000 votes.
26. In Thomas J. Walsh Papers, Library of Congress.
27. In the "run-off" primary, held on August 28, Moody received 469,182
votes to Mrs. Ferguson's 247,100.
736 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Chapter VI
1. The Charleston News and Courier, June 10, 1924, p. 1, declares that Watson
"complimented" the work of the Invisible Empire in his home state by endorsing
for Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1924 the same individual, Edward Jack-
son, whom the Klan ultimately "carried to triumph" in the intra-party contest,
while the Louisville Courier- Journal, June 10, 1924, p. 3, maintains that the Sena-
tor was compelled by Grand Dragon Bossert to enter into a "gentlemen's agree-
ment" with the Klan in Indiana to save his political machine from being taken
over by the Knights of that state.
2. The New York Times, June 10, 1924, p. 3, emphasizes that the original
statement endorsing Watson given out by Klan headquarters at the Hotel Statler
was dictated by Milton Elrod, a publicity man for the order, who said Evans had
fully authorized the statement after first conferring with Klan leaders regarding
its content, and then insisting that it be repeated to him in final form to check
thoroughly against errors.
3. In the alignment between the South and the East over the Klan issue at
the Democratic national convention of 1924 the South was readily aided by
the Middle West, the other great stronghold of Klanism during the 1920's.
4. Democratic National Committee, Official Report of the Proceedings of the
Democratic National Convention held in Madison Square Garden, New York
City, June 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, July 1,2,3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9, 1924 (Indianapolis,
1924), 95-103, contains the speech made by Forney Johnson of Birmingham, a
leading lawyer of the South, in nominating Senator Oscar W. Underwood for
the presidency, in which Johnson read to the convention the famous Underwood-
prepared anti-Klan plank, patterned after the anti-Know-Nothing plank adopted
by the Democratic national convention of 1856. (Underwood, it should be
remembered, intended to make his appeal for the nomination on his stand for
a vigorous anti-Klan plank.)
5. Erwin's remarks not only took the convention by surprise but roused it to a
spirited demonstration, for it was naturally assumed that a Georgian would have
spoken for the majority report.
6. During his speech in favor of the minority plank Bryan kept referring to
the secret order as the "Kloo Klux Klan."
7. Because of the confusion and the closeness of the result of the first poll,
Permanent Chairman Walsh had to order a recapitulation of the entire vote.
8. The minority plank on the League of Nations presented by Baker had already
been rejected by the convention by a vote of 742 Vi to 353%.
9. Although The Illinois Kourier, June 20, 1924, p. 2, reports that "the grand
Dragon Realm of Illinois . . . will go to New York to the Democratic convention
to help protect the government from papal domination," there is no evidence that
he (Palmer) ever arrived on the scene.
10. Many Democratic party workers believed that Davis' bringing up the
Klan issue had a negative effect upon his batde for the presidency. Representative
Cordell Hull of Tennessee, as Democratic national chairman in 1924, received
quite a few letters attesting to this. One said, for example, "And why, tell me,
did Davis after being the outcome and product of a long struggle on the K.K.K.
issue and after a minority report had been defeated in the convention platform
go beyond the work of the convention and declare against the Klan? That was
REFERENCES 137
a mistake." In Cordell Hull Papers, Library of Congress. Davis' eagerness to
eliminate the Klan issue quickly from the campaign is evidenced in his correspond-
ence. In a letter to William Jennings Bryan, he declared that the Klan issue
"would have continuously cropped out in the campaign, if it had not been dis-
posed of, and I am hoping that I have said the last word necessary on the subject."
In William J. Bryan Papers, Library of Congress.
11. On July 4, 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio, various agrarian and labor groups
launched a third party that eagerly nominated LaFollette for the presidency and
promptly chose Burton K. Wheeler, the Democratic Senator from Montana who
had helped conduct the investigations of corruption in the Harding administra-
tion, for the vice-presidency. The platform of the Progressive party, written by
LaFollette himself, called for reforms in the American government and economy.
12. Evans must have been referring to LaFollette's action in 1917, when he
first led the resistance in the Senate to the arming of merchant ships, and then
voted against a declaration of war on Germany.
Chapter VII
1. Representatives of the Klan, headed by Evans, had traveled also to Kansas
City, Missouri, during the national convention of the Republican party, but had
done nothing more than observe the proceedings.
2. One of the tactics of the Klan was to attempt to convince the delegates from
the South that the appeal for religious toleration included in the speech delivered
by Robinson as permanent chairman of the convention was an indication of a deep
pro-Catholic bias.
3. For the text of the letter in full, see Raleigh News and Observe*, October
9, 1928, pp. 1-2.
4. For a highly complimentary biographical sketch of Heflin, see Washington,
D. C. Fellowship Forum, December 6, 1924, p. 4. For a quite condemnatory
delineation of Heflin, see Allan A. Michie and Frank Ryhlick, Dixie Demagogues
(New York, 1939), 142-58. Heflin was an individual of the most violent anti-
Catholic persuasion. In Congress he spoke often and long-windedly against that
faith: one time he proclaimed that a Catholic employee in the Treasury Depart-
ment had been induced to engrave a rosary on the plate of the latest issue of the
dollar bill; another time he was aghast that the green drapes in the President's
room in the Capitol had been replaced by those of red, "the color of the Cardinals
of the Roman Catholic Church"; on one occasion he thundered that a "Roman
Catholic flag" had been flown above the American flag on two battleships during
religious services. For examples of the many anti-Catholic addresses made by
him on the floor of the Senate, see Cong., Record, 69 Cong., 2 Sess., 1701-02,
1835-41, 1843, 2210-23; 70 Cong., 1 Sess., 1868-74, 2613-15, 7948-49, 8049-''
8057-58, 8505-06, 8937-42, 9155-57, 10079-86, 10209-11, 10214-16.
5. Students of the presidential election of 1928 disagree as to the relative im-
portance of these factors contributing to Hoover's victory. See, for example,
Charles Edward Merriam and Harold Foote Gosnell, The American Party System
(New York, 1929), 326; Roy V. Peel and Thomas C. Donnelly, The 1928 Cam-
paign, An Analysis (New York, 1931), 52; Edmund A. Moore, A Catholic Runs
for President, The Campaign of 1928 (New York, 1956), 195-96. It is important
to note that none of these authors is willing to state positively what effect Klan
738 THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
opposition to Smith had upon the results of the election. For a sampling of letters
written just after the election by private citizens offering what they believed to
be the reasons for Hoover's victory, see Josephus Daniels Papers, Library of
Congress; George W. Norris Papers, Library of Congress; Thomas J. Walsh
Papers, Library of Congress; Hoke Smith Papers, University of Georgia.
Chapter VIII
1. For a more detailed treatment of Heflin's opposition to Smith in 1928, see
above, 89.
2. Sprigle won the Pulitzer Prize for this job of reporting.
3. Black's opponents were Thomas E. Kilby, former Governor; James J. Mayfield,
retired State Supreme Court Justice; L. Breckinridge Musgrove, coal mine operator
and member of the national board of the Anti-Saloon League; John H. Bankhead,
corporation lawyer.
4. In the summer of 1926 a journalist named Bobert B. Smith made the charge
that the Invisible Empire had "definitely established itself" in the Senate. The
exact numerical strength of the Klan bloc could not be determined, he explained,
for it depended upon the varying strength of the order in the individual states and
the proximity of election day. Although Smith doubted that any member of the
Upper House was actually a Knight, he emphasized that with a realization of the
power of the Klan at the ballot box, a number of senators were almost as responsive
to the will of the Imperial Wizard and of the Grand Dragons of the states they
represented in Congress as members of the order would be. The series of events
that took place in the 1930's involving Black and Heflin indeed lends credence
to Smith's assertions regarding the Senate.
5. Graves was an officer in the famed Rainbow Division during World War I.
6. Graves' opponents were Charles S. McDowell, Lieutenant-Governor; Andrew
G. Patterson, president of the State Public Service Commission; and Archie H.
Carmichael, former state legislator.
7. These few remarks can mean nothing other than that Graves was at the time
the Exalted Cyclops of the local Klan in Montgomery, Alabama.
8. It should be noted, however, that Communist organizers were able eventually
to gain tremendous influence in a few unions, such as that of the electrical workers
and longshoremen.
9. For a highly unfavorable character analysis of Colescott, see Heywood
Broun, "Up Pops the Wizard," The New Republic, June 21, 1939, 186-87.
Chapter IX
1. For a quite uncomplimentary delineation of Green, see Boi Ottley, "I Met
the Grand Dragon," The Nation, July 2, 1949, pp. 10-11.
2. In August, 1946, Assistant Attorney-General Daniel Duke was sent to New
York and New Jersey to confer with Attorneys-General Nathaniel Goldstein and
Walter D. Van Riper regarding the methods they had used in revoking the char-
ters of the Klan in their states.
3. Green always insisted that among his patients were both Negroes and
whites, both Protestants and non-Protestants.
REFERENCES 739
4. It was out of respect for Spinks' ardent wish that the headship of the order
was redundantly entitled.
5. Of the journalistic treatments of the White Citizens Council, one of the best
is John Bartlow Martin, The Deep South Says "Never," (New York, 1957).
6. Most of Kasper's colleagues in the White Citizens Council, by the way,
deplored his background and tactics. Kasper had been bom in New Jersey, attend-
ed Columbia University, run a bookstore specializing in anti-Semitic literature
in Greenwich Village, where he associated with Negroes of both sexes. He had
to face both state charges of sedition and incitement to riot and federal charges
of contempt of court for interfering in September, 1956, with desegregation in the
public high school in Clinton, Tennessee.
7. This order is not to be confused with the Association of Carolina Klans of
the late 1940's and early 1950's led by Grand Dragon Thomas L. Hamilton.
8. In September, 1958, Governor Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas said that he was
not in sympathy with the Klan and its methods, but that he would not use his
office to interfere with the organization in his state so long as its members obeyed
the law. In September of the previous year, it was the Governor who had ob-
structed desegregation in Central High School in Little Rock, by ordering National
Guardsmen to surround the building and prevent the Negro students from enter-
ing.
9. The Citizens for Religious Freedom was founded in September, 1960, in
Washington, D. C, at a meeting of 175 prominent Protestant ministers and laymen.
The group issued a statement questioning whether any Catholic should be presi-
dent. Two leading figures of the session were Dr. Norman Vincent Peale of New
York's Marble Collegiate Church, a well-known author and columnist, and Dr.
Daniel Poling, editor of the influential Protestant monthly, Christian Herald.
Peale, however, soon withdrew from the Citizens for Religious Freedom, telling
his congregation that he had been "stupid" to associate with it.
10. Nixon obviously did not welcome the endorsement.
11. Six of Alabama's eleven Democratic electors and all of Mississippi's eight
ran unpledged, but later agreed to support Senator Harry F. Byrd in the Elec-
toral College.
INDEX
Ahoskie, North Carolina, 44, 133-34
n.5
Akron, Ohio, 103
Alabama, 5-6, 10, 13, 28, 47, 58,
64-66, 87, 89, 94-95, 97, 98, 101-02,
109, 110, 113, 115-19, 121-124,
127, 134 n.8 ch. V, 138 n.7, 139
n.ll
Albany, New York, 89
Aldredge, S. R., 54
"alienism," 88, 89, 91, 101, 104, 124,
125
Allen, Louis C, 88
Allen, Stanton, 52
Alley, J. P., 133 n.4
Allied Klans, 115
American Federation of Labor, 102-
03
American Labor party, 95
American Legion, 110
American Mercury, 57
American Protective Association, 133
n.ll
American Protestant, 95
Americanism, Klan on, 15, 19-23, 49,
62, 83, 89, 90, 101, 107, 116, 124
Anderson, South Carolina, 94
Anderson County, South Carolina, 96
anti-prohibition, see prohibition
Anti-Saloon League, 91, 125
anti-Semitism, see Jews
Ardery, William B., 112-13
Arkansas, 13, 49-51, 64, 81, 90, 115,
124, 127, 134 n.10 ch. IV, 139 n.8
Arlington County, Virginia, 88
Arnall, Ellis, 113
Asheville, North Carolina, 34
Association of Arkansas Klans, 124
Association of Carolina Klans, 116,
118, 139 n.7
Association of Georgia Klans, 108-09,
114-15, 116, 117-18, 122
Association of South Carolina Klans,
123, 128
Atlanta, Georgia, 1, 6, 9-11, 23, 31,
46, 63, 88-89, 93, 94, 99, 103, 104,
105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 113-14,
120, 131 n.14
Augusta, Maine, 82
Austin, Texas, 53, 71
B. F. Goodrich Company, 103
Bain, Edgar H., 44
Baker, Newton D., 77, 136 n.8
Baker, William T., 42
Baltimore, 90, 95, 106
Baltimore Sun, 81
Bankhead, John H., 95, 138 n.3 ch.
VIII
Baptists, 91, 111, 115, 122, 124, 126,
133 n.12
Barnard, Elmo C, 124
Barnes, J. A., 52
Barrs, Homer, 121
Bartlett, Texas, 52
Bartow, Florida, 104
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 124
Beaumont, Texas, 51-52
Beavers, James L., 46
Bell, Edward Price, 31, 35
Bickley, James H., 122
Birmingham, Alabama, 6, 28, 64, 97,
98, 101-02, 109, 116, 119
"Birth of a Nation," 16, 132 n.4
Black, Hugo L., 65, 92, 95, 96-98,
138 nn.3 ch. VIII, 4
Blake, Aldrich, 17
Borland, Charles B., 40
Bossert, Walter F., 74-75, 80, 82, 136
n.l
Boston, Massachusetts, 64
boycotting, 12, 25-26, 118, 123
Boykin, John A., 46
Bradford County, Florida, 100
740
INDEX
141
Brickhouse, Benjamin Dunton, 49
Brimm, Hugh A., Ill
Brooklyn, New York, 95-96
Brown, J. J., 62
Brown, John, 43
Brust, A. T., 39
Bryan, Alva, 81
Bryan, Charles W., 80
Bryan, J. Winder, 44
Bryan, William Jennings, 78-79, 80,
88, 136 n.6, 137 n.10
Butcher, George K., 69
Butte, George C, 71-72, 135 n.25
Byrd, Harry, 126, 139 n.ll
Byrnes, James F., 126
Cahill, William E., 93
calendar of Klan, see Kalendar
California, 13, 27, 98-99, 100, 106,
109, 110, 111, 112, 124
Callaway, E. E., 57
Camden, South Carolina, 120
Camp Nordland, New Jersey, 112, 113
Campbell, Clarence M., 40
Cannon, James, Jr., 91
Cargell, Bobert M., 93
Carmichael, Archie H., 138 n.6
CarmichaeL James V., 126
Carter, Asa, 123
Catholics, 13, 23, 45, 46, 51, 91,
96, 105, 125, 131 n.23: Heflin and,
89, 137 n.4; Klan and, 2, 7, 12,
13, 14, 17, 19, 22, 24, 26, 30, 34,
49, 62, 64, 88, 89, 90, 95, 101,
102, 105-06, 114, 122, 123, 124,
128, 132 nn.2, 5, 136 n.9, 137
n.2; Watson and, 59
Caudle, T. Lamar, 111-12
Cedartown, Georgia, 61
chapters of Klan, see Klan (local
chapter )
charitable enterprise, 25, 26-27, 49,
111, 133 n.13
Charleston, South Carolina, 45
Charlotte, North Carolina, 121
Chattanooga, Tennessee, 43, 103
Chattanooga News, 72, 85
chauvinism of Klan, see Americanism,
Klan on
Chicago Daily News, 31
Christ the King, Cathedral of, 105
Christian Herald, 139 n.9
Church of Christ, 126
Cincinnati, Ohio, 107
Citizens for Beligious Freedom, 126,
139 n.9
civil rights, 123, 126, 127
Clark, Erwin J., 135 n.16
Clark, Tom C, 112
Clarke, Edward Young, 6-7, 8, 10, 11,
12, 19, 35, 40, 58, 63, 68, 131 n.20
Cleveland, Grover, 88
Cleveland, Ohio, 64, 74-75, 137 n.ll
Clinton, Tennessee, 139 n.6
Cohen, John S., 63, 134 n.7 ch. V
Colby, Bainbridge, 77-78
Colescott, James A., 106-07, 108, 138
n.9
Collier, J. F., 69
Collin County, Texas, 55
Columbia, South Carolina, 120
Columbus, Georgia, 45, 103, 116
Columbus, Georgia Enquirer-Sun, 8,
45
Comer, James A., 10, 49, 80
Committee for Industrial Organization,
102-04, 105, 117, 138 n.8
Committee of One Million, 105
Communism, 101-04, 105, 116, 117,
118, 122, 127, 138 n.8
Confederate Veterans, 6
Congress, investigations of Klan, 8,
13, 35, 46, 59-60, 68-70, 81; see
also House of Bepresentatives; Sen-
ate
constitution of Klan, 3, 9, 18
Cook, Baines M., 126
Cook, B. A., 49, 134 n.10 ch. IV
Coolidge, Calvin, 74, 75, 80, 82, 83,
85
Copeland, J. D., 53
costume of Klan, 5, 11, 17-18, 19,
29, 43, 72, 94, 104, 107, 110, 111,
113-14, 116-17, 124, 131 n.17, 132
n.7
Cox, James M., 79
Cox, Shelby, 54
Creager, B. B., 74, 75
742
THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
creed of Klan, 3, 19-25, 31-32, 101,
108
Crenshaw County, Alabama, 65
cross of Klan, 4, 17, 18, 56, 90, 92-93,
94, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106-110,
118-120, 124
Culberson, Charles A., 66-67, 134
n.12
Cummings, Homer S., 76
Curry, Leroy Amos, 32
Curtis, Charles, 85
Dade County, Florida, 88
Dallas, Texas, 20, 22, 28, 36, 53-
55, 69, 73, 101, 127, 135 n.13
Dallas County, Texas, 53-55, 69
Dallas Morning News, 8
Dane County, Wisconsin, 113
Daniels, Filmore Watt, 29
Daniels, Jonathan, 44
Daniels, Josephus, 44, 133 n.5
Danville, Virginia, 40
Daponte, Dorothy D., 119
Davidson, Lynch, 135 n.19
Davidson, T. W., 135 n.19
Davidson, W. H., 52
Davis, Clifford, 43
Davis, John W., 80, 82-84, 87, 136-
37 n.10
Dawes, Charles G., 74, 80, 82-83
Dawn, The, 32, 39, 58, 64
Decatur, Georgia, 93-94
Democratic party, 36, 40, 41, 42, 46,
49-51, 55-56, 60-61, 62-64, 65,
66-68, 69, 70-71, 72-73, 85-86,
94-95, 97, 98, 99-101, 109, 134 n.10
ch. IV, 135 nn.14, 16, 19, 21, 24,
25, 27, 138 nn.3 ch. VIII, 6, 139
n.ll: convention of 1924, 63, 64,
76-82, 83-84, 134 n.7 ch. V, 136
nn.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; convention of
1928, 85-87, 89, 137 n.2; convention
of 1960, 124, 126; see also Presi-
dential election
desegregation, 117-24, 127, 139 nn.
6, 8
Disciples of Christ, 32, 126
Dodge, Frank H., 50, 134 n.10 ch. IV
Doheny, Edward L., 82
Domain of Klan, 2-3, 4
Dougherty, Denis, 105
Downey, Sheridan, 98
dues of Klan, see Klectoken
Duffus, Robert L., 14
Duke, Daniel, 138 n.2 ch. IX
Duncan, Amos C, 87
East Domain of the Klan, 3
Easter sunrise services, 92, 101
education, 23
Edwards, Eldon Lee, 122, 123, 124,
127
Eighteenth Amendment, 6, 85, 86
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 120
Elrod, Milton, 136 n.2
emblems and tokens, 5, 18-19
Emperor, 3, 9
Episcopalians, 28
Erwin, Andrew C, 78, 136 n.5
Esdale, James, 47, 65, 66, 80, 97
Estes, George, 33
Etheridge, Paul S., 130 n.9
Evans, Hiram Wesley, 8, 9, 10-11, 12,
19-23, 25, 35-36, 63, 64, 65, 68,
74-75, 80-81, 83-84, 86-87, 90, 97,
99, 101, 103, 104, 105-06, 131 nn.
17, 18, 134 n.8 ch. V, 135 n.16, 136
n.2, 137 nn.12, 1
Exalted Cyclops, 3, 4
Fair Employment Practices Commis-
sion, 126
Fairfax County, Virginia, 88
Fambro, J. A., 45
Faubus, Orval E., 127, 139 n.8
Federal Bureau of Investigation, 112
Federated Klans of Alabama, 116-17
Federated Ku Klux Klans, Inc., 115
116, 117-18
Felton, Rebecca Latimer, 61-62
Ferguson, James E., 67, 70-73, 135
nn.20, 23
Ferguson, Miriam A., 70-73, 135 nn.
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27
Ferndale, Michigan, 106
fiery cross, see Cross of Klan
Fiery Cross, The, 64
INDEX
143
Flint, Michigan, 109
Florida, 13, 28, 47-48, 88, 91, 93,
96, 100-01, 104, 106, 109, 112, 117,
119-20, 121, 122, 123, 127
Florida Ku Klux Klan, 123
Folsom, James E., 113
foreign-born, 13, 96, 131 n.23: Klan
and, 2, 7, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21-
22, 26, 30-31, 101, 102, 106, 133
n.ll; see also "alienism"
Forrest, Nathan Bedford, 63, 80, 87,
134 n.6 ch. V
Forum, The, 21, 45
Fowler, C. Lewis, 33, 42
Frankfort, Kentucky, 112
Franklin County, Kentucky, 112
Fraser, J. E., 123
Freeport, New York, 93, 102
Frost, Stanley, 13, 15
Fry, Henry Peck, 15, 43
Fulton County, Georgia, 1, 47, 61, 96,
113
Fundamentalism, 24, 126, 134 n.2
Furies, 4
Furney, N. N., 68, 69
Garing, H. W., 102
Garner, John Nance, 56
Garner, Thomas Heslip, 52
Gaston, Ike, 94
Gate City Manufacturing Company,
132 n.7
Gavagan, Joseph A., 112
Genii, 3
George, Walter F., 86
Georgia, 1, 5-6, 11, 13, 23, 31, 45-47,
58-64, 81, 87, 88-89, 93, 94, 96,
99, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109,
110-14, 116-17, 120, 122, 126, 131
n.14, 134 n.7 ch. V
German-American Bund, 112, 113
Gifford, Fred L., 80
Glenn, A. E., 44
Goldsboro, North Carolina, 44
Goldstein, Nathaniel L., 138 n.2 ch.
IX
Good Government Democratic League
of Texas, 72
Goose Creek, Texas, 28
Grace, John P., 45
Graham, Virginia, 40
Grand Dragon, 3, 4
Grand Goblin, 3, 4, 7
grand passport, 97, 98-99
Graves, Bibb, 65-66, 98, 138 nn.5
ch. VIII, 6, 7
Great Titan, 3, 4
Green, Samuel J., 101, 108, 109, 114,
122, 138 nn.l ch. IX, 3 ch. IX
Greenville, South Carolina, 96, 103
Griffin, William J., 127
Griffith, David W., 16, 132 n.4
Gulf Ku Klux Klan, 124
Gunter, William A., 47
Hale, A. B., 97
Hall, Peirson, 98-99
Hamilton, James B., 53
Hamilton, Thomas L., 116, 118, 139
n.7
Hamly, Charles, 55-56
Hanes, H. Earlton, 41
Hanger, W. A., 81
Hantaman, Nathan, 29
Harding, Warren G, 79, 82, 85,137
n.ll
Hardman, L. G., 64
Hardwick, Thomas W., 60-61
Harris, Joel Chandler, 45
Harris, Julian, 45
Harris, William J., 60-61
Harrison, Pat, 76, 79
Harrison, William E., 27
Hartsfield, William B., 126
Hartsville, South Carolina, 120
Harwood, Brown, 70
Haynesville, Louisiana, 51
Hazlett, Ida Couch, 28-29
headquarters, national, of Klan, 8,
63, 68-69, 99, 103, 105, 107, 131
n.14
Heflin, J. Thomas, 89-90, 94, 95, 126,
137 n.4, 138 n.4
Henderson, Carl, 41
Hendrix, Bill, 117, 118, 119, 127
Henry, Bobert L., 66, 67, 135 n.17
Hightower, A. C, 124
Hill, Lister, 95
744
THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Hine, C. R., 51
Hodges, Robert E., 123, 128
Holcomb, Walter, 105
Holcombe, Oscar F., 55
Holder, John, 64
Hoover, Herbert, 85, 87-88, 90-91,
94, 127, 137-38 n.5
Hopkins County, Kentucky, 41
Horn, Alvin, 122
House of Representatives, 8, 46, 59-
60, 111, 133 n.l ch. IV
Houston, Texas, 11, 53, 55, 64, 85,
86-87
Houston Colonel MayfielcPs Weekly,
24-25
Howard, Gus H., 47, 61
Hull, Cordell, 86, 136 n.10
Humphrey, Hubert, 125
Hutchins, Guy, 120
Hyde Park, New York, 93
Hydras, 4
Ideals of the Ku Klux Klan, 20
Illinois, 13, 32-33, 89, 100, 107, 136
n.9
immigration, 21-22, 34, 62; see also
foreign-bom
Imperial Aulic, 3
Imperial Kleagle, 6, 7
Imperial Klonsel, 130 n.9
Imperial Night Hawk, 9
Imperial Night-Hawk, The, 30, 39
Imperial Wizard, 3, 4, 7
Independent Klans, 115
Indiana, 13, 24, 90, 99, 102, 106,
110, 133 n.2, 136 n.l '
Indianola, Mississippi, 121
Internal Revenue, Bureau of, 108
Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan, see Ku Klux Klan
Iowa, 28, 81
Isgrig, Fred A., 50
Jackson, Andrew, 88
Jackson, Edward, 136 n.l
Jackson, Mississippi, 132 n.4
Jackson, Missouri, 100
Jacksonville, Florida, 47
Jefferson, Thomas, 88, 90
Jeffersonville, Indiana, 133 n.2
Jersey City, New Jersey, 107
Jett, J. Q., 68
Jewett, N. C, 80
Jewish War Veterans, 110
Jews, 12, 13, 45, 96, 131 n.23: Kasper
and, 139 n.6; Klan and, 2, 7, 12-14,
17, 19-22, 26, 30-31, 34, 49, 93,
101, 102, 106, 109, 110, 114, 117,
122, 123, 124, 127, 132 n.2
Jim Crow laws, 101
Johnson, Charley, 119
Johnson, Forney, 136 n.4
Johnson, Jack, 117
Johnson City, Tennessee, 43
Joiner, Benton, 69
Jones, Murray B., 55
Kalendar, 18
Kansas, 13, 33, 81
Kansas City, Missouri, 14, 30, 35, 62,
64, 85, 107, 137 n.l
Kasper, John, 121-22, 128, 139 n.6
Keeling, H. M., 69
Kennedy, H. C, 41
Kennedy, John F., 124-28
Kennedy, Stetson, 43
Kenney, Robert W., 112
Kentucky, 13, 32, 41-42, 81, 89, 112-
13, 128, 133 n.2
Key West, Florida, 109
Kilby, Thomas E., 138 n.3 ch. VIII
"King, George," 69
King Kleagle, 7
Kings County, New York, 95-96
Klabee, 4
Kladd, 4
Klaliff, 4
Klan (local chapter), 3, 4, 13, 14, 15,
18, 26, 27-29, 38, 56-57, 94, 104,
130 n.5, 133 n.13
Klankrest, 11
Klannishness, 25-26, 49
Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty, 88
Klarogo, 4
Klavem, 4
Kleagle, 7, 14-15
Klectoken, 7, 10, 104
Klexter, 4
INDEX
145
Kligrapp, 4
Klokann, 4
Klokard, 4
Kloncilium, 3-4, 10
Klonklave, 4-5, 130 n.6
Klonversation, 18, 19
Klonvokation, 3-4: of 1922, 9-10; of
1924, 30-31, 35-36, 62, 64; of 1939,
106; of 1944, 108; of 1949, 114
Kloran, 5
Klorero, 97, 98
Kludd, 4, 133 n.13
Knight, 5
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 124
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Ameri-
ca, 115-16
Know-Nothing party, 64, 133 n.ll,
136 n.4
Knoxville, Tennessee, 42, 109
Kourier Magazine, 88
Ku Klux Klan: creed of, 19-25, 101;
eligibility for membership in, 14,
132 n.2; methods of, 25-29; offices
of, 3-4, 6, 7, 9; origins of, 1-10;
ritual of, 4-5; structure of, 2-4;
symbols of, 1, 4
Ku Klux Klan of Reconstruction period,
I, 2, 16-17, 18, 19, 132-33 n.9
labor unions, 102-04, 105, 112, 117,
137 n.ll, 138 n.8
La Follette, Robert M., 82-83, 137 nn.
II, 12
La Fourche, Lake, Florida, 29
Lakeland, Florida, 119-20
Lanier, W. J., 51
Lanier University, 1, 23
La Paloma night club, 93
Laredo, Texas, 53
Laurel County, Kentucky, 41
League of Nations, 74, 76-77, 79, 85,
86, 136 n.8
Lewis, John L., 102, 104
Liberty, New York, 110
Likins, W. M., 15
Lions Club, Mobile, Alabama, 89
Little Rock, Arkansas, 49-50, 139 n.8
Littlejohn, F. M., 69
local chapters; see Klan (local chapter)
London, Kentucky, 41
Long, Huey P., 105
Los Angeles, 109, 110, 112, 124
Lougher, E. H., 32, 35
Louisiana, 13, 29, 51, 115, 121, 122,
124, 133 n.14
Louisville Courier-Journal, 117
Louisville, Kentucky, 42, 133 n.2
Lowden, Frank O., 74
Lowrey & Lowrey, 69
Luverne, Alabama, 10, 66
Lyons, Robert W., 99
McAdoo, William C, 62-63, 79-80,
81-82, 85, 98-99
McBrayer, Charles H., 33
McCall, Charles C, 65-66, 134 n.9 ch.
V
McCall, H. C, 10
McClelland, L. F., 47
McDowell, Charles S., 138 n.6
McGoy, William F., 43
McMahon, Peter, 28
Macon, Georgia, 110
McQuinn, J. E., 69
McShane, Andrew J., 51
Madison, Wisconsin, 113
Madison Square Garden, 64, 76
Madisonville, Kentucky, 41
Mahoney, William James, 24, 60
Maine, 82
Manchester, Georgia, 116
Manning, A. T. W., 41
Marlboro, Massachusetts, 92-93
Marvin, Z. E., 54, 71, 73, 80, 82
Maryland, 13, 39, 90, 95, 106
Mason City, Iowa, 28
Masons, Grand Lodge of St. Louis, 100
Massachusetts, 64, 92-93
Mattituck, New York, 93
Mayneld, Billie, 24-25
Mayfield, Earle B., 66-70, 73, 81, 134
n.ll, 135 nn.15, 16
Mayfield, James J., 138 n.3 ch. VIII
Mekeel, H. Scudder, 108
membership of Klan: eligibility for,
14, 132 n.2; incentives to joining,
15-19; numerical strength of, 5, 12,
746
THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
13, 45, 66, 73, 91, 107, 109, 114,
115-116, 117, 118, 122, 123, 131 n.
24; socio-economic classes of, 14-
15, 16, 132 n.6
Memphis, Tennessee, 43, 133 n.4
Memphis Commercial- Appeal, 104-05,
133 n.4
Mer Rouge, Louisiana, 29, 133 n.14
Methodist Episcopal Church South,
see Methodists
Methodists, 1, 91, 111, 120
Miami, 28, 48, 88, 93, 96, 100-01
Michigan, 13, 81, 102, 106, 109, 112
Milledgeville, Georgia, 110
Milledgeville, Georgia Union Recorder,
110
Miller, Barry, 54
Miller, W. D., 56
Milton, George Fort, 72, 85
Mississippi, 13, 48-49, 81, 88, 112,
115, 121, 132 n.4, 139 n.ll
Mississippi Valley Domain of Klan, 3
Missouri, 13, 14, 28, 30, 35, 62, 64,
81, 85, 100, 107, 115, 137 n.l
Mitchell, E. G., 51
Mobile, Alabama, 5-6, 89, 119
Montgomery, H. C, 130 n.9
Montgomery, Alabama, 47, 115, 119,
121, 138 n.7
Montreat, North Carolina, 111
Moody, Daniel, 72-73, 135 n.27
Mooney, C. P. J., 133 n.4
Moore, J. Johnson, 47
Moore, Jere, 110
Moore, R. Walton, 41
morality, Klan on, 10-11, 12, 16, 17,
19, 24-25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 34, 39,
51, 101, 114-15, 118; see also boy-
cotting, Klan's use of; ostracism,
Klan's use of; terrorism, Klan's use
of
Morris, William Hugh, 115, 116, 118
Morrison, Cameron, 78
motto of Klan, see "Non Silba Sed
Anthar"
Mt. Kisco, New York, 93
Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, 93
Moyer, Charles E., 49
Mullaly, John F., 53
Muncie, Indiana, 106, 110
Musgrove, L. Breckinridge, 138 n.3
ch. VIII
Myersville, Maryland, 39
National Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People, 121, 122
National Kourier, The, 30
National States' Rights party, 127
Negroes, 13, 15, 40, 96, 110, 119, 131
n.23: Klan and, 2, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15,
17, 19-20, 22, 26, 30-31, 40, 42,
44, 47-48, 100-01, 102, 106, 109,
114, 116, 117, 119, 120-21, 122,
123, 124
New, Fred, 117
New Deal, 102, 125
New Jersey, 13, 82, 89, 92, 93, 106,
107, 110, 112, 113, 138 n.2 ch. IX
New Orleans, 51
New Orleans Times-Picayune, 8
New York, 13, 56, 58, 64, 74, 76-82,
89, 91, 92, 93, 95-96, 102, 106, 107,
110, 111, 112, 138 n.2 ch. IX
New York City, 58, 64, 76-82, 95-96
New York Times, 43, 45, 64, 72, 81,
95, 98, 104
New York World, 7-8, 46, 81
Newport News, Virginia, 40
Newton, C. P., 50
"night-riding," 12, 17, 28-29, 52, 65-
66, 93-94, 101, 116-17, 118, 132
n.6, 133 n.14
Nixon, Richard M., 126, 128, 139 n.10
Nolan, J. Q., 45
"Non Silba Sed Anthar," 5, 130 n.8
Norfolk, Virginia, 40
Norfolk Journal and Guide, 46
Norman, Mose, 48
North American Review, 19
North Carolina, 34, 44, 87, 91, 111,
116, 120-21, 134 n.5
North Carolina, University of, 117
Oberholtzer, Madge, 12
Ocoee, Florida, 48
O'Conor, Herbert R., 95
offices of Klan, 3-4, 6, 7, 9, 14-15, 19
INDEX
147
Official Monthly Bulletin of Mississip-
pi Klan, 88
Ogden, Utah, 85-86
O'Hara, Gerald P., 105
Ohio, 13, 25-26, 64, 74-75, 81, 86,
89, 93, 102, 103, 107, 137 n.ll
Oklahoma, 13, 29, 83, 90
Oklahoma City, 90
Old Age Revolving Pension plan, 105
Oliphant, A. Dayton, 113
O'Neil, Joseph T., 42
Orange County, Florida, 48
Oregon, 13
Original Ku Klux Klan, 124
Original Ku Klux Klan of the Confed-
eracy, 123-24
Original Southern Klans, Inc., 117
Original Southern Klans, Inc., the
Invisible Empire, 116
Orlando, Florida, 96
ostracism, Klan's use of, 12, 27-28,
118, 123
Ousley, Clarence, 67
Outlook, The, 15
Overton, Harold, 110
Owen, Robert L., 91
Ozark Klans, 115
Paducah, Kentucky, 42
Paducah News Democrat, 42
Paine, Rowlett, 43
Paonessa, Alfred A., 112
parades of Klan, 18, 19, 40, 44, 46, 47,
52-53, 92, 93, 94, 96, 101, 104, 124,
132 n.8
Parker, C. L., 117
Pate, Alton, 116
patriotism of Klan, see Americanism,
Klan on
Pattangall, William H., 77
Patterson, Andrew C, 65, 138 n.6
Patterson, John, 127
Peale, Norman Vincent, 139 n.9
Peddy, E. B., 68
Peekskill, New York, 92
Pelley, William Dudley, 105
Pelt, J. A., 52
Pennsylvania, 89, 92, 104, 106, 107
Peoria, Illinois, 100
Pettie, Virgil C, 81
Philadelphia, 104, 107
philosophy, of Klan, see creed of Klan
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 96-97, 98
Poling, Daniel, 139 n.9
politics: Klan on participation in, 22,
30-36, 38, 49, 51-52, 54, 75; Klan
in local, 38-57, 95-96, 99-101, 109,
133-34 n.5, 134 n.5, 134 nn.9 ch.
IV, 10 ch. IV; Klan in state, 38,
56-73, 94-95, 97-99, 109, 119, 127,
134 nn.6 ch. V, 8 ch. V, 9 ch. V,
10 ch. V, 11, 135 nn.13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 136 n.l, 138 nn.4, 7;
Klan in national politics, 12, 36,
63, 64, 66, 73, 74-75, 76, 77-79,
80-84, 86-91, 92, 94, 95, 124, 125-
26, 127-29, 134 n.7 ch. V, 136 nn.
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 136-37 n.10, 137
nn. 1, 2, 137-38 n.5
Polk County, Georgia, 61
Pollard, Ramsey, 126
Presbyterians, 27, 91, 111
Presidential election: of 1924, 82-84,
136-37 n.10; of 1928, 12, 36, 41, 64,
66, 73, 87-91, 92, 94, 95, 124-27,
129, 137-38 n.5; of 1960, 124-29
Progressive party of 1924, 82-83, 137
n.ll
prohibition, 34, 51, 76, 86-87, 88, 89,
91, 125, 134 n.2; see also Eighteenth
Amendment
Propagation Department, 6, 7, 40, 68
Protestantism, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23-
24, 101, 106, 133 n.ll
Protestants, 16, 91, 110-11, 120, 126,
132 n.3, 133 n.12, 139 n.9
Providence, Rhode Island, 107
Province of Klan, 3, 4
Pruitt, E. P., 116-17
Pulaski County, Arkansas, 49-50, 134
n.10 ch. IV
Pulaski County, Kentucky, 41
Putnam County, New York, 93
Raleigh, North Carolina, 44
Raleigh News and Observer, 133 n.5
Ralston, Samuel M., 82
Ramsey, H. K., 14
748
THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Randolph, Hollins N., 81
Raye, Stanley, 51
Realm of Klan, 3, 4, 7
Reed, James A., 86
Republican party, 36, 42, 67-68, 71,
72, 80, 85, 94-95, 99, 135 n.2-5, 136
n.l: convention of 1924, 74-75, 136
n.2; convention of 1928, 85, 137 n.l;
see also Presidential elections
Rhode Island, 107
Richards, Thomas F., 29
Richmond, Virginia, 39, 40
Ridley, Caleb, 60
righteousness, Klan on, see morality,
Klan on
ritual of Klan, 3, 4-5, 17, 19, 92, 94,
108, 117, 124
River Valley Klans, 115
Roanoke, Virginia, 68
Robertson, Felix D., 70-71, 73, 135
nn.21, 24
Robinson, Joseph T., 86-87, 137 n.2
Rockland County, New York, 93
Rockmart, South Carolina, 45
Rogers, C. M., 89
Rogers, John William, 53
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 117
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 93, 96, 102,
125
Roosevelt, Franklin D., Jr., 125
Roper, Samuel W., 114-15, 116, 117-
18, 122
Rose, John E., Jr., 40
Roselle, New Jersey, 106
Ruppenthal, G. J., 119
Russell, Richard B., 60, 126
Russell, Richard B., Jr., 126
Ryan, Thomas Fortune, 26
Sachtjen, Herman V., 113
Sacramento, 27
St. Francis County, Arkansas, 50-51
St. Louis, 100
St. Petersburg, Florida, 93
Sanders, J. C, 51
Savage, Fred L., 9-10
Savage, Henry, 120
Savings Bonds, U.S., 107
Sayce, John, 55
Schenectady, New York, 107
Sea Girt, New Jersey, 82
Searchlight, The, 59, 60
Searcy County, Arkansas, 51
Seashore Klans, 115
Seattle, Washington, 33
secret service of Klan, 9
segregation, see desegregation
Senate, 77, 81, 96, 138 n.4: Com-
mittee on Privileges and Elections,
68-70, 81
Share the Wealth plan, 105
Shelby County, Tennessee, 43-44
Shelton, Bob, 127
Sherry, Charles A., 39
Silver Shirt Legion of America, 105
Simmons, Furnifold McLendel, 91
Simmons, William J., 1-2, 3, 5, 6, 7,
8-10, 11, 12, 19, 31, 35, 39, 46,
58, 59, 63, 67, 117, 130 nn.l, 2,
4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 131 nn. 15, 18, 2-0
Sims, Walter, 46, 134 n.9 ch. IV
Smith, Alfred E., 12, 41, 64, 79-80,
86-91, 92, 94, 95, 124-25, 137-38
n.5
Smith, George W., 42
Smith, Gerald L. K., 105
Smith, Robert B., 138 n.4
"Solid South," 12, 55, 83, 91, 94, 127,
128-29
Somerset, Kentucky, 41
Somerville, New Jersey, 92
South Carolina, 28, 44-45, 94, 96, 103,
111, 116, 120, 122, 123
Southern California, University of,
109-10
Southern Governors Conference, 127
Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
117, 118, 119, 127
Southern Publicity Association, 6-7
Spinks, Lycurgus, 115, 116, 139 n.4
Sprigle, Ray, 96-97, 98, 138 n.2 ch.
VIII
Star Klans, 115
Starke, Florida, 100, 120
Staunton, Virginia, 41
Steel Workers Organizing Committee,
103
Steinhagen, B. A., 52
INDEX
749
Stephenson, David Curtis, 9-10, 11-12,
99, 131 n.22
Stone Mountain, 1, 108-09
Stoner, J. B., 43, 133 n.3
Straton, John Roach, 91
Strickland, Perry E., 124
Strong, Sterling P., 66-67
structure of Klan, 2-4, 19
Styles, Hal, 100
Summerville, Georgia, 120
Supreme Court, 92, 96, 118, 119, 120,
124
symbols of Klan, 1, 4, 17
Syracuse, New York, 89
Talmadge, Eugene, 109, 114
Talmadge, Herman, 109, 126
Tammany Hall, 88-89, 91, 125
Tampa, Florida, 96, 104
Tate, John, 43
Taylor, Edgar, 122
Tenaha, Texas, 28
tenets of Klan, see creed of Klan
Tennessee, 13, 42-44, 81, 91, 103,
109, 112, 115, 122, 126,128, 133
n.4, 139 n.6
terrorism, Klan's use of, 11, 12, 17,
25, 28-29, 33, 38, 48, 49, 52, 53,
55, 60, 61, 65-66, 93-94, 101, 110,
112-114, 116-121, 123, 124, 128,
132 n.6, 133 n.14; see also "night
riding"
Terrors, 4
Texas, 11, 13, 20, 22, 28, 36, 51-56,
58, 66-73, 81, 85, 86-87, 91, 101,
127, 135 nn.13, 14, 16, 21, 24,
25, 27
Textile Workers Union, 103, 104
Thomas, Cullen F., 67
Thompson, Ira B., 66
Thompson, M. E., 113
Thurmond, J. Strom, 126
Thwing, Charles F., 74
Tilden, Samuel J., 88
Tillman, J. N., 51
Toledo, Ohio, 93
Townsend, Francis E., 105
Travis County, Texas, 53, 55-56
Trenton, New Jersey, 113
Trenton, South Carolina, 28
Truman, Harry S., 100, 126
Tully, Wynn, 42
Tulsa, Oklahoma, 29
Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, 127
Twitty, Peter S., 62
Tyler, Elizabeth, 6-7, 8, 10, 11, 12,
58, 59, 63, 68
Underwood, Oscar W., 62, 64-65, 79,
134 n. 8 ch. V, 136 n.4
Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 106
United Klan, 117
Upshaw, William D., 59, 134 n.2
Urbana, Illinois, 107
U. S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan, 122-23, 124, 127
Utah, 85-86
Valley Stream, New York, 93
Valparaiso University, 23
Van Over, M. D. L., 92
Van Riper, Walter D., 113, 138 n.2
ch. IX
Van Valkenburg, F. C, 69-70
Vicksburg, Mississippi, 49
Virginia, 39-41, 68, 87-88, 91, 128
voting: Klan on, 21-22, 30, 31, 32-33,
34, 35, 133 n.l ch. Ill; Klan's
attempts to prevent Negroes from,
31, 47-48, 100-01
Wade, John W., 51
Wade, Louis D., 130 n.9, 131 n.20
Wahouma, Alabama, 87
Waldman, Louis, 95-96
Walker, Clifford, 60, 61-62
Walker, Hugh K., 91
Wallace, George, 52
Walsh, Thomas J., 76, 136 n.7
Warrensburg, Missouri, 28
Washington, 13, 33
Washington, D. C, 63, 99, 105, 131
n.14, 132 n.8, 139 n.9
Washington, D.C. Fellowship Forum,
89
Watcher on the Tower, 33
Watson, James E., 75, 136 nn. 1, 2
750
THE KU KLUX KLAN IN POLITICS
Watson, Thomas E., 59-60, 134 n.5
ch. V
Weekly News Letter of Propagation
Department, 40, 49
West Virginia, 13, 81, 125
Westchester County, New York, 93,
102
Westminster Presbyterian Church, 27
Wheeler, Burton K., 137 n.ll
White, Alma Birdwell, 33-34, 88
White Citizens Council, 121-22, 123,
126, 128, 139 nn.5, 6
Wiggins, Joe, 44
Will, Arthur T., 42
Williams, L. C, 44, 133-34 n.5
Wilmot, E. P., 67
Wilson, Woodrow, 41, 77, 80, 88
Wisconsin, 83, 113
Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
91, 125
Women of the Ku Klux Klan, 132 n.2
Wood, J. O., 64
Woodward, James C, 46
Worcester, Massachusetts, 92
World War I, 15-16
World War II, 107, 108
World's Work, 65
Yonkers, New York, 106
Young County, Texas, 55